Category: Science Fiction

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Storm: The Deep World

By Don Lawrence & Saul Dunn (British European Associated Publishers)
No ISBN
Storm: The Last Fighter & Storm: The Pirates of Pandarve
By Don Lawrence & Martin Lodewijk (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-0-90761-077-9 and 978-1-85286-083-7

Don Lawrence, one of our greatest comics artists, is rightly revered for his stunning painted artwork on the legendary British weekly strip The Trigan Empire – which was the only reason most kids read the venerable knowledge-dispensing illustrated weekly Look and Learn – but his last and greatest work is largely unknown in the country of his birth. Over the years a number of publishers have attempted to sell a mass-market English-language edition of the Dutch-published science fiction serial Storm with little success, leaving only truly dedicated fans to purchase beautiful but painfully expensive limited-edition, leather-bound, hardback deluxe collectors compendiums.

Nevertheless, to my knowledge three softcover albums were released in the 1980s and still turn up occasionally so it’s worth keeping your eyes open for a stunning fantasy treat…

The concept was first conceived by Martin Lodewijk/Vince Wernham and Laurence in 1976 as a vehicle for the character Commander Grek but declined by Dutch publisher Oberon. Reworked by science fiction author Philip Dunn (who scripted the initial episode using the pseudonym Saul Dunn) with time-lost Terran astronaut Storm as the lead, the series was far more welcome, resulting in nine albums between 1978-1982, scripted by Martin Lodewijk, Dick Matena, Kelvin Gosnell and Lawrence himself, all fondly designated as the Chronicles of Deep World.

The rejected Commander Grek tale was eventually reworked into the continuity as episode 0 and after the series was rebooted Lawrence & Lodewijk produced a further 17 tales – “The Chronicles of Pandarve” – until the artist tragically lost much of his sight and was forced to retire in 1995.

In 1987 Titan Books took up the challenge of popularising the saga – a massive hit in Germany and the Netherlands, with editions also published in French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Danish, Finnish, Greek, Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian and Indonesian – but gave up after two volumes…

Storm continued throughout Europe and is still being published today with Dick Matena, Romano Molenaar & Jorg De Vos handling the art.

The first epic, The Deep World by Lawrence and Dunn, was translated and released by British European Associated Publisher in 1982 and told in stunning, luxurious, fully-painted detail the story of astronaut explorer Storm, despatched by United Nations scientists in the 21st century to fly through the mysterious Red Spot of Jupiter. Unfortunately the valiant spaceman is trapped in those cyclonic crimson winds and propelled uncounted millennia into the future.

Dazed, lost and baffled by the seeming disappearance of the Red Spot, Storm spends a year flying back to Earth and discovers a world utterly transformed. His home world has become an icy wasteland, a Snowball Earth, but his desperate investigations uncover even more incredible secrets.

The oceans are gone and civilisation – such as it is – has relocated to the ancient sea floors. As he slowly makes his way down the miles of craggy dry depths, Storm is attacked by bandits who steal his space suit and survival kit, despite his violent resistance. Now clad only in the furs of the attacker he killed, Storm follows and encounters a fantastic planet of incredible jungles and bizarre beasts ruled by barbarian warlord Ghast.

Despite looking like a primitive thug Ghast is no fool: he knows the wearer of the strange clothes must be a commodity of great value and imprisons the wanderer in his dungeons where Storm meets a red-haired beauty called Carrots (alternatively Redhair and Ember) who is part of a secret tribe of knowledge-hoarders opposed to Ghast’s rule.

When her fellows rescue Carrots they take Storm with them and their leader Kiley reveals startling familiarity with the Astronaut’s story and equipment…

Taken to the subterranean land of Tome and a lost sub-surface sea, Storm is unaware that Ghast has tracked them deep below the surface of the Deep World. When they encounter a fantastic survivor from the age of technology and learn the secret history of Earth, Ghast refuses to accept what he sees and triggers a catastrophic explosion and flood…

The Last Fighter (Lawrence & Lodewijk) took up the tale with Storm and Carrots – now permanently dubbed Ember – washed ashore in a mountainous region which was once the Bahamas, where they are captured by slavers in a travelling circus/gladiator show.

Even held by deadly living insectoid shackles the bellicose Storm is a constant problem and when he acts up too openly in front of paying customers he finds himself made one city’s champion in a contest to capture the Throne of the Gods.

If he rebels Ember will be fed to a giant monster…

Competing against a number of other champions, Storm must invade the “Palace of Death”, sit on “The Throne” and win “The Powers” for his city…

He complies and undertakes the lethal quest and discovers a huge, unexpected advantage: he is the only man alive who recognises the Palace as a crashed starship with all its deadly automatic defences activated and the throne as a captain’s command chair. Of course, that’s no real help when battling through the colossal booby-trapped corridors of the vast vessel to the off-switch, nor proof against the weapons of his rival champions or the schemes of the corrupt organisers of the contest…

After this Titan jumped immediately to the tenth tale, The Pirates of Pandarve, which saw an abrupt transition in the series as, after ages wandering the Deep World of Old Earth, Storm and Ember were suddenly catapulted into a universe of cosmic strangeness. Pandarve is a multiversal junction point where the laws of physics vary from moment to moment; a place of many worlds and planetoids with only localised gravity fields, circling an immense super-planet, all existing in a breathable atmosphere envelope instead of a special vacuum.

The pocket universe is ruled by power-mad dictator called Marduk, Theocrat of Pandarve – a man obsessed with temporal energy- whose long-range scanners detect an incredible chronal anomaly on Earth. Determined to possess the phenomenon at all costs, Marduk rips open the gateway of the multiverse and teleports Storm and the hapless collateral casualty Ember to Pandarve…

At that moment rebels attack the Theocrat’s citadel, disrupting the process and his targets materialise in space hundreds of miles above planet Pandave, shocked, terrified yet somehow still alive. Floating helplessly, the pair are rescued by an old man in a sailing boat hunting a space whale, but tragically when the monumental beast attacks Ember is lost…

When Storm and old man Rann reach his home asteroid they find a scene of devastation and the hunter’s daughter abducted by the bloodthirsty marauders of Vertiga Bas. The traumatised elder is saved from suicide by the time-lost Earthman and, believing Ember dead, they determine to pursue the pirates and rescue the stolen child.

Meanwhile, Ember has been picked up by Marduk’s men…

The searchers reach the outlaw habitat where Storm rescues Rann’s daughter in a truly unique manner, but soon falls foul of the Buccaneer city’s unique laws.

Condemned to the water-mines Storm’s last sight is of Ember, broadcast around the pocket universe as Marduk’s next bride…

The tragic hero has no idea that’s it’s all a ploy by the Theocrat to entrap the Anomaly…

In the mines Storm chafes under the trauma and pressure, his only friend the huge warrior called Nomad. With no real hope of success they begin to plan escape and revolution…

And that’s where, after a spectacular battle the magic, mayhem and majesty ends, with a freed Storm searching for his red-headed paramour in a scintillating, cliffhanging promise of more to come…

Those English-language hardback collectors editions were released way back in 2004, and now retail for astonishing amounts of money so surely it’s time for another go at a mass-market competitively priced run?

© 1982 Oberon bv – Haarlem – Netherlands – Don Lawrence/Philip Dunn.

© 1987 Oberon BV/Don Lawrence and Martin Lodewijk. UK edition © 1987 Titan Books, Ltd.

© 1987 Oberon BV/Don Lawrence and Martin Lodewijk. UK edition © 1989 Titan Books, Ltd.

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Captain Eo – Eclipse 3-D special

(The official 3-D comic book adaptation of the George Lucas 3-D musical motion picture directed by Francis Coppola)

By Tom Yeates (Eclipse)
No ISBN; ASIN: B00071AU66

With all this foofaraw and tarradiddle about 3D at the moment I thought I’d shamelessly cash in by reminding fans about the multi-dimensional comics venture Eclipse, Disney, the King of Pop and an absolute swarm of high-profile creative types worked on in this weird but undeniably spectacular item from the 1980s.

Speaking charitably, this is a comics adaptation of the 17-minute science fiction film designed to be shown in “4-D” (then cutting edge stereoscopic cinematography combined with in-theatre special effects such as teeth-rattling rigged seats, smoke, lasers and explosions) at Disney theme-parks around the world.

However, what you had in those theatres and pre-Imax venues (the film ran from 1986 into the 1990s and was briefly reinstated when Michael Jackson died in 2009) is a straight but incredibly expensive (apparently $30 million to produce at a cost-per-screen-minute of $1.76m) music video: a puff-piece, song-and-dance mini-musical designed to emulate and recapture the buzz the Thriller promo generated around the world – complete with a brace of songs and killer formation dance numbers – substituting star-ships for graveyards and cute aliens for zombies.

The film’s creative credits are formidable: produced by George Lucas, it was choreographed by Jeffrey Hornaday and Jackson, photographed by Peter Anderson, produced by Rusty Lemorande and written by Lemorande, Lucas & Francis Ford Coppola, who directed. Anjelica Huston played the villain…

Let’s talk about the 30-page comic…

The less than stellar Captain Eo and his anthropomorphically engaging crew of robots and cuddly extraterrestrials are tasked with delivering a gift to the ghastly tyrant Supreme Leader on her dystopian hell-world, a task complicated by their chummy ineptitude and her tendency to turn all visitors into trash cans and torture projects…

When Eo and Co. are seized, the ultra-cool hipster sees something decent buried within the evil queen and after defeating her Whip Warriors in highly stylised combat transforms her into a thing of serene beauty with the redemptive power of a perfectly choreographed interpretative rock-dance number…

Tom Yeates’ staggeringly beautiful art makes the very best of the weak story and derivative characters – even if he did have to draw an entire seven-page big musical closer – and whether you see the 3D package formatted by the genre’s guru Ray Zone as the blockbusting 432x282mm (or 17inches by 11 for all you Imperial Stormtroopers out there) tabloid format available at the theme parks and theatres or the regulation comicbook issue distributed to stores, if you can work the glasses you’re in for a visual treat of mind-blowing proportions. There was talk of a straight, monochrome non-3D version too but if it exists I’ve never seen it.

Gloriously flamboyant, massively OTT, but as great a piece of drawing as came out of the over-egged Eighties, Captain Eo is a truly intriguing book that might just grab any jaded reader who thinks there’s nothing new or different left to see…
Published by Eclipse Comics August 1987. Captain Eo ™ and © 1987 The Walt Disney Company. All rights reserved.

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Space Clusters – DC Graphic Novel #7


By Arthur Byron Cover & Alex Niño (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-930289-14-0

During the 1980s DC, like many publishers large and small galvanised by fresh print-formats and price-tags, attempted to free comics narrative from its previous constraints of size and format as well as content.

Graphic novels were still an unproven quantity in America and Big Guns DC and Marvel as well as angelic upstarts First and Comico adopted a kind of scattershot “suck it and see” attitude, although all parties were apparently content on switching decided on the now extinct (more’s the pity) 8½ by 11 inch European Album page format.

Whereas the House of Ideas had a solid publishing plan that didn’t stray too far from their usual periodical product, DC looked to expand or overlap markets by creating “boutique” imprints such as the Science Fiction Graphic Novel line (adapting classic short stories and novellas into highly experimental graphic narratives) and the plain old catch-all – if unimaginative – DC Graphic Novel Series. Often, at least in sequential narrative terms, there’s not much discernible difference between the two.

However, as this is a place to review and promote graphic novels, please be assured that this is one that works excessively well; evocative, bold and beautifully realised.

To accompany such venerable in-house landmarks as Jack Kirby’s Hunger Dogs and licensed material like Star Raiders and Warlords, the company commissioned all-new tales such as the spectacular and unique and eons-spanning cosmic fantasy of the Space Clusters.

Scripted by author Arthur Byron Cover (Autumn Angels, An East Wind Coming) the true lure here is the lavish full-colour illustration of the most stylish and uncompromisingly impressive artists of the 1970s Filipino invasion РAlex Ni̱o.

The artist was born in 1940, son of and later assistant to a professional photographer. He studied medicine at University of Manila but dropped out in 1959 to pursue his dream of being a comics artist.

He apprenticed with Jess Jodloman and worked on a number of successful features before following Tony DeZuniga in the first wave of Islands artists to work for DC, Marvel and Warren. A stand-alone stylist even amongst his talented confederates, Niño started on DC’s anthology mystery series such as House of Mystery, House of Secrets, Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion, Secrets of Sinister House, Weird War Tales, Weird Mystery Tales and The Witching Hour before moving into series such as Korak, Son of Tarzan, Space Voyagers and period Caribbean pirate Captain Fear which he co-created with Robert Kanigher.

His Marvel work included adaptations for their own “illustrated Classics” line and landmark interpretations of Ellison’s ‘“Repent Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman’ and Moorcock’s ‘Behold the Man’ for Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction as well as the stunning Savage Sword of Conan classic ‘People of the Dark’ and miscellaneous inking work in the superhero titles.

He found his fullest expression in Warren Publishing’s mature-oriented magazines Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella and the outrageously over-the-top sci-fi title 1984/1994 before largely leaving the industry for Hollywood design work, although a stint on Archie’s The Comet and Shield/Steel Sterling and DC’s Thriller and Omega Men were fairly impressive swan-songs. He also worked for a variety of smaller companies during the 1980s Independents boom and curious true-fans should try to track down his one-man band Alex Niño’s Nightmare #1 featuring translated Filipino material, published in 1989 by Innovation.

He has since occasionally returned to comics in such titles as Dark Horse Presents, Shaman, John Jakes’ Mullkon Empire, Savage Sword of Conan and God the Dyslexic Dog.

With overtones of Les Miserables and The Forever War, the saga begins here as beloved rogue and man of the people Ethan Dayak is finally cornered by dedicated Earth cop Lieutenant Kara Basuto of the Terran Interplanetary Corps on a far-flung alien world.

She has pursued the smuggler of decadent art across the universe at sub-light speeds for eighty years, aging only when she hits a new planet and emerges from suspended animation.

Kara is cold, fanatical and dedicated whilst Dayak is an affable, personable and loving man every race and sentient species he encounters instantly adores…

During their latest confrontation Ethan again escapes, thanks to the intervention of his latest paramour, causing the increasingly remorseless Basuto to finally cross the line and kill civilians…

Crushed, defeated and despondent Dayak sets course for the edge of the galaxy, intending to sleep his way to infinity but even this does not deter Basuto who implacably follows.

Time becomes nothing and eventually both fall into the event horizon of a Black Hole where something incredible happens: both are transformed into supernal, sentient energy phenomena, still trapped in their course of flight and relentless pursuit…

However here at the end of space and time a mighty new race populates the universe and how these ancient new gods deal with the last life of the cosmos makes for a powerful and beguiling drama no fan of the genre will want to miss, especially as the expanded page size and enhanced colour palette give Niño ample opportunity to let his fantastic imagination run wild.

It’s an inexpressible pity they’re all currently out of print and this is an experiment the company should seriously consider resuming. Moreover, as I’ve stated before: these DC Science Fiction graphic novels would make an irresistible “Absolute” compilation…
© 1986 DC Comics Inc. All rights reserved.

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Cyberpunk book 1 & 2


By Scot Rockwell, Darryl Banks & Doug Talalla (Innovation)
ASIN: B005KDE9UO & B000GG0BBQ

One of the most ambitious and intriguing cash-ins on the 1990s literary phenomenon dubbed “Cyberpunk” was this challenging and potentially excellent yarn crafted very much in the manner of William Gibson’s Neuromancer which never had the time, editorial support or fanbase to develop into what it could and should have been. The story debuted as a brace of 2-issue miniseries in 1989 before being collected in colourful but exceedingly thin tomes.

It all begins in the near future with ‘Bad Dreams’ as freelance ICEbreaker Topo AKA “the Mole” attempts to infiltrate street-gang the Plastiques before returning his addicted consciousness to the shared cyberspace arena of the “Playing Field”.

Topo despises his meat body and would spend eternity in the neural universe if possible, but when his crusading lover and occasional employer is abducted by her latest target, Roi of Quondam Mechanics the Mole needs the assistance of tech-broker Alma Matrix to balance the scales and even the odds…

Probing the Corporation’s datastore in his avatar-form proves disastrous, but Topo survives and returns to his meat-form changed on a core level into something new and with very dangerous knowledge, leading to a fantastic showdown with Roi in an apocalyptic Playing Field which is catastrophically self-destructing all around them…

Book Two ‘The Masks of Time’ opens three years later as Juno allies with a streetgang called the Hotboys to track down her missing partner Topo who has vanished into cyberspace, obsessed with exploring the farthest frontiers of the digital universe and finding at last the mythical semi-mystical “Edge” of existence.

The rescue mission is doomed from the start. The Hotboys have their own agenda, Juno is unsure of her motives and Topo, deeper than any mind has ever delved, has encountered “Cyberghosts” who reveal a whole new reality…

When Alma Matrix is attacked and forced to intervene in Topo’s extended cerebral suicide, events take a extreme turn and the Mole’s gradual apotheosis resumes; culminating in a spectacular, radical denouement which offers the best available ‘Solace’ for all the conflicted players involved…

Although plainly derivative this smart little sci fi thriller offered a classy introduction to the sub-genre for comics fans and still holds the attention better than most related works, in comics or prose. The painted art ranges from excellent to murkily average but works well within the tale’s multi-level conception and I would certainly look favourably on a “twenty-five years later” sequel should one ever be mooted…
Cyberpunk, Topo, Juno and all other prominent characters and distinctive likenesses are ™ 1989 Scott Rockwell. Story © 1989 Scott Rockwell. Art (Book 1) © 1989 Darryl Banks, (Book 2) © 1990 Doug Tallala All rights reserved.

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Out of this World Volume 1


By Raymond Everett Kinstler & various (Malibu)
No ISBN

A little while ago I reviewed the mind-boggling, intellectually challenging science fiction yarns of DC’s Strange Adventures and made a rather offhand remark about the other end of the genre-spectrum then extant.

Whilst Julie Schwartz and his band of writers (many full-time SF authors recruited during the Editor’s early days as a literary agent) pushed conceptual envelopes and opened doors of wonder, another strand focusing on sheer adventure offered the trappings of the form in racy, hard-bitten tales with rocket-ships replacing speeding Sedans or charging steeds, blasters substituting for gats or six-guns, aliens taking the place of Commies, Injuns or mobster-mooks and yes, lots of scantily clad babes in torn clothes or fetching ensembles comprising filmy underwear and large glass domes on their immaculately coiffed, pretty little heads…

These terrifically tacky tales of space sensationalism from another age are a delicious forbidden and oh, so guilty pleasure, thus there’s no real literary justification for today’s featured item, just old fashioned fun and some extremely enticing artwork.

These pre-code tales from minor publishers of the early 1950s are sheer, rockets-roaring, Thud and Blunder classics and might be missing a few technical truths and sensible science facts, but in terms of pulse-pounding excitement and masterful illustration they’re the real deal…

Collected from Avon’s Strange Worlds #9, Strange Planets #16 (an I.W. reprint of Strange Worlds #6), Harvey Comics’ Tomb of Terror #6 and S.P.M’s Weird Tales of the Future #1, the material within is pretty much the best the sub-genre has to offer and opens with the Everett Raymond Kinstler illustrated ‘Ransom – One Million Decimars!’ (Strange Worlds #9, November 1952) as hard-boiled space-cop Mike Grant hunted down the interplanetary mobster who had kidnapped the daughter of Earth’s President…

The same issue also provided the utterly anonymous ‘World of the Monster Brain!’ with its tale of the overthrow of a transdimensional tyrant as well as the thoroughly cathartic save-the-world thriller ‘Radium Monsters’ which looks like early Frank Springer to me…

Extraordinary special Agent Kenton of the Star Patrol spectacularly tackled ‘The Monster-Men of Space!’ in another Kinstler classic from Strange Planets #16 whilst  ‘The Survivors!’ (Tomb of Terror #6 1952, with art tantalisingly reminiscent of Joe Certa) pitted hunk and hot babe against hairy horrors in a post-Armageddon yarn, after which the manic tragedy of ‘The Man Who Owned the Earth’ (Strange Planets #16) was followed by the concluding classic of unwanted immorality in ‘Ten Thousand Years Old!’

This cheap and cheerful black and white compilation, coyly contained behind a cracking Bruce Timm cover, cuts straight to the magnificently cheesy pulp pulchritude pull of this kind of fantasy and although hard to find, difficult to justify, and perhaps a stretch to accept from our advanced perspective here in the future, these stories and their hugely successful ilk were inarguably a vital stepping stone to our modern industry. There is a serious lesson here about acknowledging the ability of comics to appeal to older readers from a time when all the experts would have the public believe that comics were made by conmen and shysters for kiddies, morons and slackers.

Certainly there are also a lot of cheap laughs and guilty gratification to be found in these undeniably effective little tales. This book and the era it came from are worthy of far greater coverage than has been previously experienced but no true devotee should readily ignore this stuff.

© 1989 Malibu Graphics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Strange Adventures volume 1


By John Broome, Otto Binder, Edmond Hamilton, Joe Samachson, Gardner Fox, Carmine Infantino, Gil Kane, Sid Greene & various (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-4012-1544-6

As the 1940s closed, masked mystery-men dwindled in popularity and the American comicbook industry found new heroes. Classical genre titles flourished; anthologies dedicated to crime, war, westerns and horror, were augmented by newer fads like funny animal, romance and especially science fiction which in 1950 finally escaped its glorious thud and blunder/ray guns/bikini babes in giant fishbowl helmets pulp roots (as perfectly epitomised in the uniquely wonderful Golden Age icon Planet Comics) with the introduction of Strange Adventures.

Packed with short adventures from jobbing SF writers and a plethora of new heroes such as Chris KL99, Captain Comet, the Atomic Knights and others, the magnificent monthly compendium (which was supplemented a year later with sister-title Mystery in Space) introduced wide-eyed youngsters to a fantastic but intrinsically rationalist universe and the wonders it might conceal…

This spectacular and economical monochrome collection features stories from the inception of the self-regulatory Comics Code (issues #54-73, covering March 1955 to October 1956) right up to the start of the Silver Age when superheroes began to successfully reappear, offering wide-eyed technological wonderment and the sure and certain knowledge that there were many and varied somethings “Out There”.

On a thematic note: a general but by no means concrete rule of thumb was that Strange Adventures generally occurred on Earth or were at least Earth-adjacent whilst as the name suggests Mystery in Space offered readers the run of the rest of the universe…

Moreover many of the plots, gimmicks, maguffins and even art were recycled for the later technologically-based Silver Age superhero revivals…

This mind-blowing, physics-challenging monochrome colossus opens with the March 1955 issue and four classic vignettes, beginning with ‘The Electric Man!’ by John Broome & Sy Barry, wherein a geologist in search of new power sources accidentally unleashes destructive voltaic beings from the centre of the Earth. As always – and in the grand tradition of legendary pulp sci-fi editor John Campbell – human ingenuity and decency generally solves the assorted crises efficiently and expeditiously…

‘The World’s Mightiest Weakling!’ from Otto Binder, Carmine Infantino & Bernard Sachs offered a charming yet impossible conundrum when a puny stripling gained incomprehensible mass and density during the course of an experiment, whilst ‘Interplanetary Camera!’ (Binder, Gil Kane & Sachs) gave a photographer a glimpse of the unknown when he found an alien image recorder and uncovered a plot to destroy Earth. The issue concluded with another Binder blinder in the taut thriller ‘The Robot Dragnet!’ illustrated by Harry Sharp & Joe Giella, with a rip-roaring romp of rampaging robotic rage.

This tale was actually the sequel to an earlier yarn but sufficiently and cleverly recapped so that there’s no confusion or loss of comprehensibility…

Issue #55 led with ‘The Gorilla who Challenged the World’ by Edmond Hamilton & Barry, wherein an ape’s intellect was scientifically enhanced to the point where he became a menace to all mankind. So great was his threat that this tale also was carried over to the next issue…

During this period editors were baffled by a bizarre truism: every issue of any title which featured gorillas on the cover always produced increased sales. Little wonder then that so many DC comics had hairy headliners…

‘Movie Men from Mars!’ (Hamilton, Sharp & Giella) found our world the unwilling location for cinematographers from the Red Planet. Unfortunately they were making a disaster movie…

‘A World Destroyed!’ by Joe Kubert offered a fanciful but gripping explanation for how the asteroid belts between Mars and Jupiter were formed and the cataclysm theme continued in ‘The Day the Sun Exploded!’ with Broome, Kane & Sachs depicting a desperate dash by scientists to save Earth from melting, after which Sid Gerson, Murphy Anderson & Giella revealed the baffling puzzle of ‘The Invisible Spaceman!’

Strange Adventures #56 opened whimsically with ‘The Fish-Men of Earth!’ (Broome, Infantino & Sachs) as air density went temporarily askew thanks to invading aliens, ‘Explorers of the Crystal Moon!‘ (Broome, Sharp & Sachs) found a little boy going for a secret solar safari with visiting extraterrestrials, and artist Paul Paxton inadvertently became ‘The Sculptor Who Saved the World!’ when future-men asked him to make some highly specific pieces for them. A fast-paced yarn by Broome, Kane & Giella saw penitent Dr. Jonas Mills correct his evolutionary error by finally defeating his mutated gorilla in the concluding part of the simian saga ‘The Jungle Emperor!’ by Hamilton & Barry.

Broome, Sid Greene & Sachs’ ‘The Spy from Saturn!’ opened issue #57 with a Terran scientist replaced by a perfect impostor, whilst ‘The Moonman and the Meteor!’ (Bill Finger & Barry) found millionaires and aliens trying to buy or inveigle a fallen star from a humble amateur astronomer for the best and worst of reasons, after which Binder, Kane & Giella proffered ‘The Riddle of Animal “X”’ when a small boy found a pet like no other creature on Earth, before ‘Spaceship Under the Earth!’ (Broome, Infantino & Giella) revealed an incredible ancient find to a Uranium prospector and some fugitive convicts desperate enough to try any means of escape…

Issue #58 began with a police chief’s frantic search for a superhuman felon in ‘I Hunted the Radium Man!’ (Dave Wood & Infantino) whilst ‘Prisoner of Two Worlds!’ by Finger & Barry saw the long awaited return of genius detective Darwin Jones of the Department of Scientific Investigation.

Although an anthology of short stories Strange Adventures featured a number of memorable returning characters and concepts such as Star Hawkins or Space Museum during its run. Jones debuted in the very first issue, solving fringe science dilemmas for the Federal Government and making thirteen appearances over as many years. In this third adventure he assisted alien peace-officers in preventing a visiting extraterrestrial from taking a commonplace earth object back to his homeworld where it would be a ghastly terror-weapon…

‘Dream-Journey Through Space!’ (Broome, Kane & Sachs) saw an ordinary human plucked from Earth to rescue an ancient civilisation from destruction and a humble but cunning ventriloquist save our world from invasion by invincible aliens in Finger, Greene & Giella’s ‘The Invisible Masters of Earth!’

A young married couple had to find a way to prove they weren’t animals on ‘The Ark from Planet X’ (Broome, Greene & Giella) which opened #59, whilst ‘The Super-Athletes from Outer Space!’ came to our world to train in a heavier gravity environment and found the galaxy’s greatest sports-coach in a charming tale by Binder, Kane & Sachs.

Ed “France” Herron & Infantino then explored the domino theory of cause and effect in ‘Legacy from the Future!’ before Broome & Barry delved into ancient history and doomsday weaponry to discover the secret of our solar system and ‘The World that Vanished!’

Strange Adventures #60 featured a light-hearted time-travel teaser by Broome, Jerry Grandenetti & Giella when historians gathered together famous historic personages from ‘Across the Ages!’ but ‘The Man Who Remembered 100,000 Years Ago!’ (Binder, Kane & Sachs) was a terse, tense thriller as lightning provoked ancestral memories of a previous civilisation just in time for a scientist to cancel the self-same experiment which had eradicated them…

Broome, Greene & Sachs then followed the life of a foundling boy who turned out to be an ‘Orphan of the Stars!’ and the issue ended with a future-set thriller where schoolboy Ted Carter won a place on a multi-species outing to the ‘World at the Edge of the Universe!’ (Binder & Barry).

In #61, ‘The Mirages from Space!’ (Binder, Kane & Sachs) were a portal into a fantastic other world and the secret of Earth’s ultimate salvation; ‘The Thermometer Man’ by Binder, Greene & Giella saw an scientist striving to save a stranded Neptunian from melting in the scorching hell of our world and a lighthouse keeper was forced to play smart to counter a Plutonian invasion with ‘The Strange Thinking-Cap of Willie Jones!’ (Herron & Barry) before Binder, Greene & Giella’s ‘The Amazing Two-Time Inventions’ found an amateur inventor making fortuitous contact with his counterparts in 3000AD…

Strange Adventures #62 introduced ‘The Fireproof Man’ (Broome, Infantino & Sachs) whose equally astounding dog foiled an alien invasion whilst an ordinary handyman fell into another dimension to become a messiah and ‘The Emperor of Planet X’ (Broome, Greene & Giella). Binder, Kane & Giella then reported an abortive ‘Invasion from Inner Space!’ before ‘The Watchdogs of the Universe!’ recruited their first human agent in a tantalising tale by Binder, Greene & Giella.

‘I Was the Man in the Moon!’ by Joe Samachson, Grandenetti & Giella started #63 with an intriguing puzzler as an ordinary Joe awoke to find aliens had inexplicably re-sculpted the lunar surface with his face whilst a Native American forest ranger was the planet’s only hope of translating an alien warning in The Sign Language of Space!’ (Binder, Greene & Giella).

‘Strange Journey to Earth!’ by Jerry Coleman & Kane Giella saw an ordinary school teacher deduce an alien’s odd actions and save the world and the issue ended in ‘Catastrophe County, U.S.A.!’ where Hamilton, Greene & Giella introduced scientists to the Government’s vast outdoor natural disaster lab…

Sales-boosting simians were back in #64 as Finger, Infantino & Sachs introduced hostile ‘Gorillas in Space!’ who were anything but, whilst a first contact misunderstanding resulted in terror and near-death for an Earth explorer lost in ‘The Maze of Mars’ (Binder, Greene & Sachs) after which a technological Indiana Jones became ‘The Man Who Discovered the West Pole!’ (Binder, Kane & Giella) and Samachson & Grandenetti crafted a canny tale of planetary peril in ‘The Earth-Drowners!’

In #65 (February 1956) ‘The Prisoner from Pluto!’ by Binder, Greene & Giella, featured an alien trying to warn Earth of imminent Saturnian attack and forced to extreme measures to accomplish his mission whilst a different kind of cultural upheaval was referenced in the quaint but clever tale of ‘The Rock-and-Roll Kid from Mars!’ by Samachson, Kane & Giella. A stage mentalist outfoxed genuine telepaths in ‘War of the Mind Readers!’ by Binder, Infantino & Sachs and a biologist turned temporary superhero to foil an alien attack in ‘The Man who Grew Wings!’ by Binder, Greene & Giella to end the issue.

Issue #66 opened with Broome & Infantino’s tale of ‘The Human Battery!’ as an undercover cop suddenly developed an incredible power, a guy in a diner mistakenly picked up ‘The Flying Raincoat!’ (Samachson, Greene & Giella) and accidentally averted an insidious clandestine invasion of our world before Binder, Kane & Sachs had Darwin Jones solve the ‘Strange Secret of the Time Capsule!’ and the metamorphic ‘Man of a Thousand Shapes!’ (Samachson, Infantino & Sachs) proved to be a being with a few secrets of his own…

Broome, Kane & Giella’s ‘The Martian Masquerader!’ in Strange Adventures #67 played clever games as editor Julie Schwartz (aka “Mr. Black”) was approached by an alien in need of assistance in tracking down an ET terrorist whilst Hamilton, Greene & Giella honed in on a subatomic scientist desperate to find his infinitesimal homeworld in ‘Search for a Lost World!’

‘The Talking Flower!’ in chemist Willie Pickens’ buttonhole was a lost alien who helped him save the world in Samachson, Infantino & Sachs’ charming romance but the time travelling travails experienced by archaeologist Roger Thorn after he discovered the ‘Gateway Through the Ages!’ (Hamilton, Greene & Giella) led only to danger and hard-earned knowledge.

Issue #68 opened with ‘The Man who Couldn’t Drown!’ (Broome, Infantino & Sachs): a tale of genetic throwbacks and unfathomable mystery whilst a ‘Strange Gift from Space!’ (Samachson, Greene & Giella) led to a safer planet for all, after which a chance chemical discovery produced a happy salvation in ‘The Balloons That Lifted a City!’ (Samachson, Kane & Giella) and a common thief got in way over his head when he robbed a laboratory in Samachson, Greene Sachs’ witty ‘The Game of Science!’

In #69 a time-traveller voyaged into pre-history and helped the dawning humans overcome ‘The Gorilla Conquest of Earth’ (Broome, Kane & Sachs) whilst the arrival of ‘The Museum from Mars’ (Gardner Fox, Greene & Giella) offered almost irresistible temptation and deadly danger to humanity and ‘The Man with Four Minds!’ (Hamilton & Infantino) saw a man with too much knowledge and power eschew it all for normality before ‘The Human Homing Pigeon!’ (Samachson, Greene & Giella) burned out his own unique gift in the service of his fellows…

‘The Triple Life of Dr. Pluto!’ by Broome, Greene & Giella in #70 dealt with the dangers of a human duplicating ray and Darwin Jones was faced with a deadly puzzle when warring aliens both claimed to be our friends and ‘Earth’s Secret Weapon!’ (Samachson, Kane & Giella). An early computer fell into the hands of a petty thief with outrageous consequences in ‘The Mechanical Mastermind!’ by Samachson & Infantino whilst the ‘Menace of the Martian Bubble!’ (Broome, Greene & Giella) was foiled by a purely human mind and the skills of a stage magician.

Issue #71 featured ‘Zero Hour for Earth!’ (Broome & Barry) as a scientist at world’s end sent a time twisting thought-message back to change future history, whilst invisible thieves of the planet’s fissionable resources were thwarted by a scientist with a unique visual impairment in ‘Raiders from the Ultra-Violet!’ by Binder, Greene & Giella, after which writer Ray Hollis saw a star fall and encountered ‘The Living Meteor!’ (Fox, Kane & Sachs) and a guy with a weight problem discovered he had become ‘The Man Who Ate Sunshine!’ in a clever conundrum from Samachson, Grandenetti & Giella.

Strange Adventures #72 began with a fabulous, self-evident spectacular in ‘The Skyscraper that Came to Life!’ by Broome, Greene & Giella, whilst a shooting star revealed an ancient ‘Puzzle from Planet X!’ which promised friendship or doom in a classy yarn from Hamilton, Greene & Sachs, after which ‘The Time-Wise Thief!’ (Gerson & John Giunta) provided a salutary moral for a bandit with too much technology and temptation before ‘The Man Who Lived Nine Lifetimes!’ (Binder, Kane & Giella) was aroused from a sleep of ages to save us all from robot invasion…

The initial flight of fantasy concludes with the contents of issue #73, beginning with ‘The Amazing Rain of Gems!’ by Broome, Greene & Giella wherein a sentient jewel almost beguiles the entire world, humans are hijacked to attend a ‘Science-Fiction Convention on Mars’ (Fox, Kane & Giella), ‘The Man With Future-Vision!’ (Fox, Infantino & Sachs) discovers that knowing what’s coming isn’t necessarily enough, and the imaginative inspiration ends with a clever time-paradox fable in Hamilton, Greene & Giella’s ‘Reverse Rescue of Earth!’

Conceived and edited by the brilliant Julie Schwartz and starring the cream of the era’s writers and artists, Strange Adventures set the standard for mind-boggling all-ages fantasy fiction. With stunning, evocative covers from such stellar art luminaries as Murphy Anderson, Carmine Infantino, Gil Kane and Ruben Moreira, this titanic tome is a perfect portal to other worlds and, in many ways, far better times.

If you dream in steel and plastic and are still wondering why you don’t own a personal jet-pack yet, this volume might go some way to assuaging that unquenchable fire for the stars…
© 1955, 1956, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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William Gibson’s Neuromancer – a Marvel Graphic Novel


By Tom de Haven and Bruce Jensen (Marvel/Epic)
ISBN: 0-87135-574-4

Even during the burgeoning comics boomtimes of the 1980s when the most inane, insane or banal illustrated material seemed capable of achieving a measure of success and acclaim, occasionally books everybody “knew” would be huge hits somehow failed to score or survive.

Perhaps the most surprising of these was a high-profile graphic adaptation of William Gibson’s landmark first novel, which looked great, triumphantly rode the zeitgeist of the era (in fact it created it) and was massively anticipated by avid readers within the industry and beyond it…

At this time Marvel led the field of high-quality original graphic novels: offering Marvel Universe tales, series launches, creator-owned properties, movie adaptations and licensed assets in lavishly expansive packages (square-ish pages of 285 x 220mm rather than the customary 258 x 168mm) which felt and looked instantly superior to the gaudily standard flimsy comicbook pamphlets – irrespective of how good, bad or incomprehensible the contents proved to be…

With the Gibson-minted term “Cyberspace” (first coined in his 1982 short story ‘Burning Chrome’ – as well as the acronym “ICE”: Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics) on everyone’s mind and the suddenly legitimised literary Noir sub-genre of Cyberpunk revolutionising film and comicbooks, Marvel’s Epic imprint released the first two chapters of the multi-award winning Neuromancer in an effective and challenging 48 page adaptation by author and screenwriter Tom de Haven (It’s Superman!, Galaxy Rangers), illustrated by bookcover illustrator Bruce Jensen.

This slim introductory teaser tome comprises ‘Chiba City Blues’ and ‘The Shopping Expedition’ describing a frantic and terrifying dystopian future where life is cheap, drugs are everywhere, money is everything and human bodies are merely the basic canvas for electronic or mechanical augmentations.

Those with any imagination, hope or human potential spend all the time they can in the omni-pervasive wonder-world of cyberspace where anything is possible and escape is always tantalising close… just like death.

Burned out hacker-hustler Case is on a downward spiral. He used to be a top “Cowboy”, hired to break data security and steal for the Big Boys. His major mistake was keeping some for himself and getting caught…

Instead of killing him, his “clients” took away his talent with chemicals and surgery and then let him loose to die slowly and very publicly by inches over years…

Now his trials are almost at an end: someone in the vast under-city is hunting him and all the derelict’s remaining connections are turning their backs on him…

When he is finally cornered by the deeply disturbing augmented assassin Mollie Millions (who first debuted in Gibson’s 1981 short story Johnny Mnemonic) Case’s life changes forever – but not necessarily for the better…

Mollie’s boss Armitage needs the world’s greatest hacker to crack an impossible data store and in return he’s prepared to repair all the cyber-cripple’s neural handicaps. Of course it won’t be pleasant and the boss is going to take a few biological precautions to ensure complete loyalty…

Addictively desperate to return to Cyberspace the hobbled hacker agrees, but as he undertakes his task he increasingly finds that everyone involved has their own exclusive agenda: even Armitage’s silent partner, the mysterious Artificial Intelligence Wintermute, is playing its own deadly game…

Intriguing and engrossing, this ultimately frustrating artefact isn’t so much my recommendation (although on its own truncated terms its not a bad piece of work and you might just like on its own terms) as a heartfelt wish for a new – and complete – pictorial interpretation and an impassioned plug for the prose novel itself if you still haven’t got around to it…
Introduction © 1989 William Gibson.  © 1989 Byron Preiss Visual Publications, Inc. Original novel Neuromancer © 1984 William Gibson. All rights reserved.

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Swords of the Swashbucklers – Marvel Graphic Novel #14


By Bill Mantlo & Jackson Guice; lettered by Ken Bruzenak & coloured by Alfred Ramirez (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-87135-002-5

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 creative explosion, generating a number of supremely impressive, idiosyncratic series on better quality paper 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 their earliest hits was a sparkling, rambunctious science fantasy serial with a delightfully familiar core concept: Pirates in Space.

Swords of the Swashbucklers debuted in a premiere Marvel Graphic Novel before graduating to an on-going Epic series in March 1985; created by the much missed Bill Mantlo and ‘Jackson “Butch” Guice, whose collaborative efforts had made the latter days of the Marvel Micronauts comicbook such a vibrant joy (and there’s another series simply gasping for an Essential Edition, should the arcane gods of Trademark and Licensing ever get their acts together…)

The oversized process-colour format had been a great success for the company: a venue for a variety of “big stories” told on larger than normal pages (285 x 220mm rather than the now customary 258 x 168mm, similar to the standard European albums of the times) featuring not only proprietary characters such as Iron Man or the New Mutants, but also licensed assets like Conan, media tie-ins such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and creator-owned properties including Jim Starlin’s Dreadstar, Cholly and Flytrap and many more.

Although little more than a prelude for the series that followed this scintillating romp is still a compelling rollercoaster adventure in its own right which begins on the South Carolina coastline the morning after a terrific storm had battered those isolated dunes.

Thirteen year old Domino Blackthorne Drake, descendent of a genuine buccaneer queen, is happily beach-combing with her cat Cap’n Kidd when they find an incredible alien device uncovered by the gales.

Although clearly centuries old, the thing is still active and, as her distracted parents discuss their marital problems, the bold little girl gets too close and the artefact unleashes a torrent of impossible energy into the helpless lass…

As the authorities take over and place the now comatose waif and bizarre device into government quarantine, across the universe a solar-sailed marauder attacks a colossal slave ship of the rapacious Colonizer Empire. In command of the freebooter “Starshadow” is charismatic, ruthless half-breed Raader – the scourge of intergalactic civilisation…

A merciless conglomeration of greedy knaves and pitiless cutthroats, the Swashbucklers are still more welcome on many worlds than the resource-plundering, slave-taking Colonizers and, after freeing the captives (whilst keeping all their treasures and possessions) the Starshadow heads for safe-harbour on the hidden world Haven.

Here, amidst fair-weather friends and openly hostile rivals, the pirate princess clashes and carouses before awakening in her mother’s house – a citadel the mysterious “Earthling” Bonnie Blackthorne has maintained for over two hundred years…

When the pirates intercept a signal from a long-lost Colonizer probe coming from beyond the cosmic phenomena dubbed the Cloudwall, the race is on to secure the riches of the new world hidden there…

Daring the intergalactic unknown and expansion-obsessed Colonizer ships, the Starshadow arrives on the legendary planet Earth only hours ahead of the Imperial survey forces. The primitive human forces swiftly fall between attacks from both pirates and invading alien conquerors, whilst the somnolent Domino slumbers on.

When the Surveyors seize the sleeper and her family, the girl snaps awake, filled with irresistible, uncanny energies and routs the raiding party, but not before her mother and father are taken aboard the Imperial flagship, which retreats back beyond the Cloudwall to report a new world to conquer.

Rescued by Raader Domino discovers an impossible shared heritage with the alien privateer and determines to join her on the other side of the sky, both to rescue her parents and possibly save her own unsuspecting world…

Straightforward, fast-paced adventure in the grand manner, supplemented by a ‘Saga of the Swashbucklers’ additional feature, this is a fine fun book well worthy of rediscovery, preferably with the entirety of the comicbook run that followed in one deluxe collection.

Until then, though all these items are readily available through many internet retailers, so dig deep, me thrill-starved Hearties…
© 1984 Bill Mantlo & Jackson Guice. All rights reserved. Swords of the Swashbucklers is ™ Bill Mantlo & Jackson Guice.

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Robotech: the Macross Saga volume 1


By Jack Herman, Carl Macek, Mike Baron, Reggie Byers, Neil D. Vokes, Ken Steacy & various (WildStorm)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-713-9

Robotech was a minor comics/TV crossover phenomenon of the 1980s based on some rather deft remarketing of assorted Japanese fantasy exports. Whilst American TV company Harmony Gold was cobbling together and re-editing three separate weekly science fiction anime series (Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA), US model-kit company Revell had begun selling Japanese mecha kits based on the aforementioned Fortress Macross, plus Super Dimension Century Orgus and Fang of the Sun Dougram as Robotech Defenders, complete with an all-new English language tie-in comic produced by DC Comics.

A copyright clash resulted in the DC title being killed two issues in, after which TV produced Carl Macek and Revell went into limited partnership on a Macross co-licensing deal which saw the three shows translated into an 85-episode generational saga wherein planet Earth was rocked by successive alien invasions decades apart and only saved from annihilation by a fortuitous spaceship crash which had allowed humans to master extraterrestrial Robotechnology.

The American TV hybrid and toy range naturally led to Role Playing Games, novels, an animated movie, art books and comicbooks which have been semi-continuously in print since 1984.

The premise evolved into The Macross Saga – First Robotech War: a desperate conflict with giant Zentraedi warriors seeking to retrieve a crashed space craft; Robotech Masters – Second Robotech War wherein Earthlings battled a fresh wave of Zentraedi, come here to discover what happened to their lost fleet and Robotech Masters – Third Robotech War, with enemies becoming allies to confront an even greater, mutual foe: the horrendous Invid, from whom the Robotech Masters had originally stolen the near-magical, cataclysmic, semi-spiritual power source Protoculture, reverentially worshipped as the Flower of Life and the motivating force behind all Robotechnology….

Comico produced separate titles set twenty years apart (Robotech Macross Saga, Robotech Masters and Robotech the New Generation) from 1984-1989, after which Eternity Comics, Academy Comics, Antarctic Press and WildStorm took up the perennial favourites in their turn.

At the height of the furore in 1986 and two years after the comic book triptych launched, Comico produced Robotech: the Graphic Novel, an original oversized 48 page European style graphic album plotted by Carl Macek which filled in the heretofore unknown backstory; telling the story of that fateful First Contact when a starship crashed onto the island of Macross.

It was scripted by Mike Baron, illustrated by Neil D. Vokes & Ken Steacy (with painted colour by Tom Vincent and lettering by Bob Pinaha) and the initial chapter of that revelatory tale provides the opening segment of this digest-sized, full-colour compilation which then re-presents the first six Macross Saga comicbooks in a handy catch-all edition for the next generation of Amerimanga or OEL (Original English Language) fans.

In ‘Genesis: Robotech’ far away on the other side of the universe a two kilometre long spacecraft is seeding desolate worlds with a unique plant. Unconventional and rebellious Philosopher-Scientist Zor is attempting to grow the energy-rich Flower of Life in soil not sanctioned by his Robotech Masters, over the protests of dutiful warrior-commander Dolza.

This allows the insidious and monstrous Invid to track them, fanatically attempting to wipe out the Zentraedis who had purloined their sacred bloom and daily desecrated its holy purpose…

Although temporarily driven off, the Invid fatally wound Zor and he dispatches the ship on a pre-programmed jaunt across the universe to a world only he knows of…

In two text reminiscences Bob Shreck and artist Neil Vokes describe the frantic efforts which resulted in the deal with the fledgling Comico and dictated rushing out the first issue ASAP (further demanding a new issue every fortnight until a stable print schedule could be established)…

All of which goes some way to pardoning the rather crude visuals on ‘Booby Trap’ as, a decade after that vessel crashed on Macross Island (instantly ending a percolating Third World War), the united Terran forces are preparing to activate their greatest weapon: the retooled, reconstructed ship as interplanetary dreadnought SDF-1 – Super Dimension Fortress.

Preparing for a shakedown flight and full test run ex-Admiral Gloval is not prepared for the shocking alien attack he has been dreading ever since the super-ship smashed to Earth…

In fact his first inkling of trouble is when the city-sized construct automatically fires its colossal main-gun, obliterating a squadron of unseen Zentraedi scout ships, just as teen exhibition-aviator Rick Hunter arrives on the Pacific Island to meet old mentor Roy Fokker. The invaders brutally respond and Gloval is compelled to take SDF-1 to battle stations and direct a desperate counterattack.

Caught up in the action Rick finds himself stuck in a Veritech fighter-plane he has no idea how to fly, dogfighting with giant invaders in incredible, mecha murder-machines…

With the Island and planet under brutal assault the illustration takes a huge step up in quality for the second issue as ‘Countdown’ finds the embattled Captain Gloval forced, under repeated sorties from the invaders, to move the sitting duck SDF-1 space whilst the civilians of Macross City suffer dreadfully under the Zentraedi bombardment.

Rick has made his first kill and panicked when his jet morphed into a giant robot, but has no time to panic as he saves civilians Minmei and her little brother Jason from death in the ruins…

Unfortunately the Fortress anti-gravity engines fail and humanity seems doomed until Gloval and his snarky Executive Officer Lisa Hayes gamble everything and switch to good, old-fashioned jet power…

Temporarily safe in low-Earth orbit, the SDF-1 is still an easy target for repeated alien assaults and the civilian population can only cower in deep shelters beneath Macross Island. With the SDF-1’s Veritechs easy prey for the Zentraedi, Gloval gambles again and activates the untested ‘Space Fold’ system. Instantly, a space warp deposits them safely in the orbit of Pluto, but brings with it a huge chunk of Macross, Pacific Ocean and Earth atmosphere…

Caught in mid-air over the city in the lad’s exhibition plane, Rick and Minmei are instantly stranded in hard vacuum but manage to crash into a previously unexplored section of the SDF-1 as the baffled engineers report to Gloval that the Fold Generators which saved and marooned them all months from home have inexplicably vanished…

Stranded in deep space, but temporarily beyond the reach of Zentraedi attack, the first order of business is rescuing the civilians trapped in the remnants of Macross Island. After long weeks the populace has been resettled within the vast ship and Macross City is being steadily incorporated into the vessel’s superstructure. ‘The Long Wait’ reveals how Rick and Minmei coped; isolated, alone and presumed dead until the constant rebuilding accidentally uncovers their unsuspected survival hutch…

As the SDF-1 proceeds slowly and cautiously back towards Earth, Gloval, Hayes and Fokker discuss reconfiguring the ship if necessary. The trouble is that nobody can predict what the ‘Transformation’ will mean to the masses of humanity now infesting every spare inch of the super-ship…

As they pass Saturn the decision is taken from their hands as the Zentraedi ambush the ship and the SDF-1 reconfigures into its gigantic robot warrior mode to fight off the cataclysmic alien ‘Blitzkrieg’…

Packed with fast-paced action and, I’m afraid, quite a bit of the twee, comedy-of-romantic-embarrassment soap opera beloved by the Japanese, this collection by Mike Baron, Jack Herman, Carl Macek, Reggie Byers, Dave Johnson, Mike Leeke Svea Stauch, Neil D. Vokes, Ken Steacy, Jeff Dee, Chris Kalnick, Phil Lasorda, Tom Poston, Rich Rankin and a host of colourists and letterers was groundbreaking for American comicbooks and opened the doors to a Manga invasion that reshaped the industry.

The stories also read winningly well, even after all these years and are easily accessible to older kids and young teens as well as all us picture-story junkies who never agreed to grow up…

Fun and adventure in the grand old space opera manner, it’s about time these 1980s epics were revisited by a more comics friendly readership.
© 2003 Harmony Gold, USA, Inc. All rights reserved. Previously published as Robotech: the Macross Saga #1-6 & Robotech: the Graphic Novel. © 1984-1986 Harmony Gold, USA, Inc and Tatsunoko Production Company, Ltd. Robotech®, Macross® and all associated names, logos and related indicia are trademarks of Harmony Gold USA, Inc.

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Valerian and Laureline book 2: The Empire of a Thousand Planets


By J.-C. Méziéres & P. Christin, with colours by E. Tranlé and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-087-0

Val̩rian is arguably the most influential comics science fiction series ever drawn Рand yes, I am including both Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon in that expansive and undoubtedly contentious statement.

Although to a large extent those venerable strips defined the medium itself, anybody who has seen a Star Wars movie has seen some of Jean-Claude Méziéres & Pierre Christin’s brilliant imaginings which the filmic phenomenon has shamelessly plundered for decades: everything from the look of the Millennium Falcon to Leia‘s Slave Girl outfit -as this second volume powerfully proves in a stunning comparisons feature following after the magnificent adventure contained herein…

Simply put, more carbon-based lifeforms have experienced and marvelled at the uniquely innovative, grungy, lived-in tech realism and light-hearted swashbuckling rollercoaster romps of Méziéres & Christin than any other cartoon spacer ever imagined possible.

The groundbreaking series followed a Franco-Belgian mini-boom in fantasy fiction triggered by Jean-Claude Forest’s 1962 creation Barbarella. Valérian: Spatio-Temporal Agent launched in the November 9th, 1967 edition of Pilote (#420) and was an instant hit. In combination with Greg & Eddy Paape’s Luc Orient and Philippe Druillet’s Lone Sloane, Valérian‘s hot public reception led to the creation of dedicated adult graphic sci fi magazine Métal Hurlant in 1977.

Valérian and Laureline (as the series eventually became) is light-hearted, wildly imaginative time-travelling, space-warping fantasy (a bit like Dr. Who, but not really at all…), drenched in wry, satirical, humanist action and political commentary, starring, in the beginning, an affable, capable, unimaginative and by-the-book cop tasked with protecting the official universal chronology and counteracting paradoxes caused by casual time-travellers.

When Valérian travelled to 11th century France in the initial tale ‘Les Mauvais Rêves (‘Bad Dreams’) he was rescued from doom by a fiery, capable young woman named Laureline whom he brought back to the 28th century super-citadel and administrative wonderland of Galaxity, capital of the Terran Empire. The indomitable lass trained as a Spatio-Temporal operative and began accompanying him on his missions.

Every subsequent Valérian adventure until the 13th was first serialised weekly in Pilote until the conclusion of ‘The Rage of Hypsis’ after which the mind-boggling sagas were only published as all-new complete graphic novels, until the whole spectacular saga resolved and ended in 2010.

The Empire of a Thousand Planets originally ran in Pilote #520-541from October 23rd 1969 to March 19th 1970 and saw the veteran and rookie despatched to the fabled planet Syrte the Magnificent, capital of vast system-wide civilisation and a world in inexplicable and rapid technological and social decline.

The mission is one of threat-assessment: staying in their base time-period (October 2720) the pair are tasked with examining the first galactic civilisation ever discovered that has never experienced any human contact or contamination, but as usual, events don’t go according to plan…

Despite easily blending into a culture with a thousand sentient species, Valerian and Laureline soon find themselves plunged into intrigue and dire danger when the acquisitive girl buys an old watch in the market.

Nobody on Syrte knows what it is since all the creatures of this civilisation have an innate, infallible time-sense, but the gaudy bauble soon attracts the attention of one of the Enlightened – a sinister cult of masked mystics who have the ear of the Emperor and a stranglehold on all technologies….

The Enlightened are responsible for the stagnation within this once-vital interplanetary colossus and they quickly move to eradicate the Spatio-temporal agents. Narrowly escaping doom, the pair reluctantly experience the staggering natural wonders and perils of the wilds beyond the capital city before dutifully returning to retrieve their docked spaceship.

Soon however our dauntless duo are distracted and embroiled in a deadly rebellion fomented by the Commercial Traders Guild. Infiltrating the awesome palace of the puppet-Emperor and exploring the mysterious outer planets Valerian and Laureline discover a long-fomenting plot to destroy Earth – a world supposedly unknown to anyone in this Millennial Empire…

All-out war looms and the Enlightened’s incredible connection to post-Atomic disaster Earth is astonishingly revealed just as inter-stellar conflict erupts between rebels and Imperial forces, with our heroes forced to fully abandon their neutrality and take up arms to save two civilisations a universe apart yet inextricably linked…

Comfortingly, yet unjustly familiar, this spectacular space-opera is fun-filled, action-packed, visually breathtaking and mind-bogglingly ingenious.  Drenched in wide-eyed fantasy wonderment, science fiction adventures have never been better than this.

© Dargaud Paris, 1971 Christin, Méziéres & Tran-Lệ. All rights reserved. English translation © 2011 Cinebook Ltd.