Category: Vertigo

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Y- The Last Man: volume 8 Kimono Dragons


By Brian K Vaughan, Pia Guerra Goran Sudžuka & José Marzán (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-358-9

When a plague killed every male on Earth, only Yorick Brown and his pet monkey Ampersand survived in a world made instantly utterly all-girl. With a government agent and a geneticist escorting him across the devastated American continent to a Californian bio-lab, all the young man could think of was re-uniting with his girlfriend Beth, trapped in Australia when the disaster struck.

The romantic fool trekked from Washington DC overland to California, getting ever closer to his fiancée, whom he presumed had been stranded in Oz since civilisation ended. His reluctant companions were secret agent 355 and Dr. Allison Mann, who was trying to solve the mystery of his continued existence. The latter feared she might have actually caused the plague by giving birth to the world’s first parthenogenetic human clone.

Also out to stake their claim and add to the general tension were a crack squad of Israeli commandos led by the steely-willed General Tse’Elon, plus post-disaster cult Daughters of the Amazon who wanted to make sure that there really were no more men left to mess up the planet. To further complicate matters, for much of that journey Yorick’s occasionally insane sister, Hero, was also stalking them across the ultra-feminised, ravaged and now utterly dis-United States.

After four years and some incredible adventures Yorick (a mediocre student but a rather proficient amateur magician and escapologist) and entourage made it to Australia, only to discover Beth had set off for Paris a year previously. Along the way Dr. Mann had discovered the truth: the reason Yorick was alive was that Ampersand was inexplicably immune and had the disgusting habit of “sharing” his waste products – if Yorick couldn’t duck fast enough…

As this book opens (reprinting issues #43-48 of the award-winning comics series) the lad and his extremely tolerant lasses have reached Japan, following a ninja who had stolen the crucially important monkey. ‘Kimono Dragons’ (illustrated by Pia Guerra & José Marzán Jr.) finds the wanderers in Yokogata Port, joined by Rose, the ship’s captain who befriended them. They soon split up though, when Ampersand’s tracking device starts working again: Yorick and 355 follow it to Tokyo, whilst Rose and Allison explore a different path.

Dr. Mann is a brilliant scientist, but not as smart as her parents: both radical geneticists with major personal issues. She is convinced that her mother had something to do with the plague and Ampersand’s abduction. She’s right too, but as she and Rose reach the elder Doctor’s rural laboratory they have no idea that the pesky little simian has escaped and is loose in Tokyo somewhere. They are equally unaware that the lethally ruthless ninja is searching for the lost capuchin too…

Meanwhile, the heavily disguised Yorick and 355 have reached Tokyo, a city seemingly unchanged by the disaster… but appearances can be horrifyingly deceiving…

…And in Kansas, Yorick’s sister finds a hidden enclave where she sees proof that he is no longer the last male alive (See Y The Last Man volume 3: One Small Step)…

Ampersand’s trail has led Yorick and 355 into conflict with the now all-women Yakuza. They find an ally in undercover cop You, but her plan doesn’t inspire much confidence…

…And when Allison’s mother – let’s call her Dr. Matsumori – finally appears, Rose and Allison are too slow to prevent a bloody assault. As the aging doctor works to save a life, she reveals the hidden agendas and reasons why American politicians, Israeli soldiers and greedy opportunists around the globe have been hunting Yorick and Ampersand for the last four years…

In Tokyo the raid to recover the monkey has also gone brutally awry, but the big surprise occurs in Yokogata, as Allison learns who the Ninja actually works for and who has orchestrated the whole affair… the family member who actually designed and released the plague…

As renegade Israeli General Tse’Elon invades the Kansas enclave where Hero Brown is helping to raise the last children born on Earth, ‘Tin Man’ (with art from Goran Sudžuka& José Marzán Jr.) traces the convoluted history of Dr. Allison Mann as her biologist parents broke scientific barriers, ethical codes and each other’s hearts fighting over her affections and reveals the implications of the broken family’s genetic meddling,  before this volume closes with ‘Gehenna’ (Sudžuka& Marzán Jr.), an equally illuminating examination of General Tse’Elon’s past: how she rose to power before the fall of man, and how far she’ll go to achieve her ends, ending the book on a chilling cliffhanger…

By crafting his slow-burning saga with carefully sculpted, credible characters and situations Vaughan built an intellectually seductive soap-opera fantasy of telling power. As the impressive conclusion neared, this well-paced, dryly ironic, moving and clever tale blossomed into a very special tale that should delight any fan of mature fiction. Bear down, the best is yet to come…
© 2006 Brian K Vaughan & Pia Guerra. All Rights Reserved.

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John Constantine, Hellblazer: Reasons to be Cheerful


By Mike Carey, Leonardo Manco, Giuseppe Camuncoli & Lorenzo Ruggiero (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-450-0

You’ve either heard of John Constantine by now or you haven’t, so I’ll be as brief as I can. Originally created by Alan Moore during his groundbreaking run on Swamp Thing, he is a mercurial modern wizard, a hell-addicted chancer who plays with magic on his own terms for his own ends. He is not a hero. He is not a nice person. He is nothing like Keanu Reeves. Sometimes though, he’s all there is between us and the void… the magician that is, not the actor…

That’s the only slice of levity you’ll get here, as with Reasons to be Cheerful writer Mike Carey took the world-weary warlock through some of the most infernal horrors he’s ever encountered as another of the Trickster’s infernal and impromptu devil’s bargains came roaring back to bite him on the arse…

Following on and expanding the traumas seen in Hellblazer: Stations of the Cross this volume collects issues #201-206 of the magnificent Vertigo comicbook, but before the main course ensues, opens with a terrifying palate-clearing one-off thriller.

In ‘Event Horizon’ (illustrated with dark passion by Leonardo Manco) the now-retired urban mage is dragged back into the mire of supernatural horror when a greedy low-life gangster-wannabe hires some street thugs to burgle Constantine’s lock-up and steal all those “valuable antiques” he has squirreled away. Of course the assorted ne’er-do-wells soon realise to their everlasting regret that some things just aren’t up for grabs…

Throughout this creepy morality play on “don’t take what isn’t yours” the aging mage is one step behind the action and clearly off his game, so when the four-part ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’ begins he is utterly unable to even comprehend the danger he’s stepped into…

At the climax of the previous graphic novel the magician “married” a she-demon, and trapped in a nightmarish suburban family hallucination fathered three devil-babies. Now those Hell-brats have come to visit and, full of childish glee, have begun torturing and murdering his every surviving friend and associate – a very small club indeed…

Constantine only becomes aware when his oldest enemy comes to his aid, just in time for some last-minute heroics to save life-long pal Chas Chandler and one of his two remaining blood-kin…

Dragged back into the life he’d thought and prayed he had finally escaped, Constantine prepares to return to Hell and save that last, lost soul… but that’s the meat of the next collection as the final tale in this book digresses to follow the freshly exorcised Chas.

In ‘Cross Purpose’ (illustrated by Giuseppe Camuncoli & Lorenzo Ruggiero), still twisted, tainted and shell-shocked by the demon who recently rode his soul, Chas goes on a rampage of uncharacteristically bad behaviour before trying to pick up the pieces of a life seemingly shattered forever.

But some things just can’t be forgiven…

This relentlessly dark British series is always drenched with savage tensions, bloody confrontations and the perfect blend of supernal terror and contemporary angst. Hellblazer is the perfect horror-comic and one no mature modern fan can afford to miss.

© 2004, 2005, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Hellblazer: The Fear Machine


By Jamie Delano and various & (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-880-5

You’ve either heard of John Constantine by now or you haven’t, so I’ll be as brief as I can. Originally created by Alan Moore during his groundbreaking run on Swamp Thing, he is a mercurial modern wizard, a chancer who plays with magic on his own terms for his own ends. He is not a hero. He is not a nice person. Sometimes though, he’s all there is between us and the void.

Given his own series by popular demand, he premiered in the dying days of Reaganite Atrocity in the US but at the height of Thatcherite Barbarism in England, so as we’re singing the same song now (but with second-rate Britain’s Got Talent cover-artists as leaders) I thought I’d cover a few old gems that might be regaining their relevance in the days ahead…

In 1987 Creative Arts and Liberal attitudes were dirty words in many quarters and the readership of Vertigo was pretty easy to profile. Jamie Delano began the series with relatively safe horror plots, introducing us to Constantine’s unpleasant nature, chequered history and odd acquaintances but even then discriminating fans were aware of a joyously anti-establishment political line and wild metaphorical underpinnings.

Skinheads, racism, Darwinian politics, gruesome supernature and more abound in the dark dystopian present of John Constantine – a world of cutting edge of mysticism, Cyber-shamanism and political soul-stealing. In Delano’s world the edges between science and magic aren’t blurred – they simply don’t exist.

Some terrors are eternal and some seem inextricably tied to a specific time and place: The Fear Machine (collecting issues #14-22 of the mature readers monthly comicbook) is an engrossing extended epic which began when the wizard went on the run after the tabloid press pilloried him as a Satanist serial killer in ‘Touching the Earth’ (by Delano, Richard Piers Rayner & Mark Buckingham).

Forced to flee his inner London comfort-zone he is adopted by a band of neo-pagan Travellers (apparently as responsible for all the ills plaguing society in the 1980s and 1990s as fat people and immigrants are today…) and journeys through the heartland of Britain.

Going native amongst the drop-outs, druggies, bath-dodgers and social misfits Constantine buddies up with an immensely powerful psychic girl named Mercury and her extremely engaging mum, Marj, but even amidst these freewheeling folks he can feel something nasty building. The first inkling occurs in ‘Shepherd’s Warning’ when Mercury discovers an ancient stone circle has been fenced off by a quasi-governmental company named Geotroniks. Someone is trying to shackle Mother Earth’s circulatory system of Ley lines…

Meanwhile elsewhere, people are compelled to kill and mutilate themselves and Geotroniks is watching and taking notes…

When police raid the Travellers campsite in ‘Rough Justice’ Mercury is abducted and imprisoned in a secret complex where the mind’s limits and the Earth’s forces are being radically tested. Cutting edge stuff… if only the subjects and observing scientists can be persuaded to stop committing suicide…

Mike Hoffman illustrated the fourth chapter, ‘Fellow Travellers’ as Constantine headed back to London for help in finding Mercury and uncovering the secrets of Geotroniks. He gains a horrific insight when the train he’s on is devastated by a psychic assault which makes all the passengers destroy themselves…

‘Hate Mail & Love Letters’ (with art by Buckingham & Alfredo Alcala) begins two months later. Marj and the travellers are hiding in the Highlands with a fringe group called the Pagan Nation, led by the mysterious Zed – an old friend of the wily trickster. Constantine keeps digging, but across the country suicide and self harm are increasing. Society itself seems diseased, but at least the Satanist witch hunt has been forgotten as the Press rage on to their next sanctimonious cause celebré…

Touching base with his few police contacts and pet journalists the metropolitan mage soon stumbles into a fresh aspect of the mystery when a Masonic hitman begins removing anyone who could be of use to his enquiries in ‘The Broken Man’. Saving journalist Simon Hughes from assassination in a particularly exotic manner guaranteed to divert attention from his politically damaging investigations, Constantine finds new clues that a the psychic horror and social unrest are all being orchestrated by reactionary aspects of the government and a sinister “Old Boy network”…

And somewhere dark and hidden Mercury’s captors are opening doors to places mortals were never meant to…

As the Pagan Nation’s priestesses work their subtle magics to find the missing girl and save humanity’s soul, a disgusting, conglomerate beast-thing is maturing, made from fear and pain, greed and suffering and deep black despair: provoking a response from and guest-appearance by Morpheus, the Sandman, and prompting Constantine, Hughes and possibly the last decent copper in London to go hunting…

Picking up another recruit in the form of KGB scientist Sergei, events spiral ever faster as the Freemasons – or at least their “Magi Caecus” elite – are revealed to be organising the plot in ‘Betrayal’, combining Cold War paranormal research, economic imperialism, Thatcherite divisive self-gratification and the order’s own quasi-mystical arcana to create a situation in which their guiding principles will control society and the physical world. It nothing more than a greedy power-grab using blood and horror to fuel the engines of change…

All pretence of scientific research at Geotroniks is abandoned in ‘The God of All Gods’ as Masonic hitman Mr. Webster goes off the deep end, ignoring his own Lodge Grandmaster’s orders to abort the project amidst an increasing national atmosphere of mania, determined to free the fearful thing they’ve created and unmake the modern world at all costs. Constantine’s allies are all taken and the wizard is left to fight on alone.

Knee deep in intrigue, conspiracy and spilled guts, humanity seems doomed unless Constantine’s band of unhappy brothers and a bunch of Highland witch women can pull the biggest, bloodiest rabbit out of the mother of all hats in the spectacular conclusion ‘Balance’…

The heady blend of authoritarian intransigence, counterculture optimism, espionage action, murder-mystery conspiracy theories and ancient sex-magic mix perfectly to create an oppressive tract of inexorable terror and smashed hope before the astounding climax forestalls if not saves the day of doom, in this extremely impressive dark chronicle which still resonates with the bleak and cheerless zeitgeist of the time.

This is a superb example of modern horror fiction, inextricably linking politics, religion human nature and sheer bloody-mindedness as the root cause of all ills. That our best chance of survival is a truly reprehensible exploitative monomaniac seems a perfect metaphor for the world we’re locked into…

Clever, subversive and painfully prophetic, even at its most outlandish, this tale jabs at the subconscious with its scratchy edginess and jangles the nerves from beginning to end. An unmissable feast for fear fans, humanists and political mavericks everywhere…

© 1989, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Fables volume 8: Wolves


By Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham & others (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-388-6

Fables is one of those blessed delights that makes a reviewers job almost impossible. Series of matchless quality that still improve with each volume are rare and most welcome but you soon run out of superlatives to express your enthusiasm, so unless the reviewer wants to cross the border into Spoiler Territory (giving away a plot to a potential fan ought to be a Capital Offence) you really have nothing to offer: therefore I’m repeating my standard short review: Best One Yet – Get Them All.

Still and all you might want a little more, so…

The monthly comicbook Fables details the exploits of fairytale and storybook characters that we humans regard as fictional, living secret immortal lives among us, refugees from a monstrous all-consuming Adversary who had conquered their original otherworldly homelands.

Allow me to elucidate. Keeping their true nature hidden from humanity the Fables have created enclaves where their magic and sheer strangeness (all the talking animals are sequestered on a remote farm in upstate New York, for example) keep them luxuriously safe. Many characters do wander the human world, but always under strict injunction not to draw attention. These magical, perfect, cynical yet perversely human creatures dream of one day returning to their own homes and interrupted lives.

They used to live with the constant threat that their all-consuming foe would one day find them…

However their nemesis has been revealed as the puppeteer Geppetto, who used his ability to carve living, sentient beings out of wood to build all-powerful armies, soon supplemented with goblins, monsters and collaborators who joined rather than die when his unstoppable marionette forces came marching in. ruling in anonymity from behind his greatest creation the Emperor. Geppetto has almost conquered all of Reality, but now with his secret revealed the indomitable refugees of Fabletown are planning to retaliate…

Collecting issues # 48-51 of the monthly comic this volume brings everybody up to speed with the handy ‘Who’s Who in Fabletown’ featurette before the eponymous two-parter ‘Wolves’ (illustrated by Mark Buckingham, Steve Leialoha & Andrew Pepoy) finds the eternally young Mowgli prowling the Arctic hinterlands attempting to track down absent friend – and experienced warrior – Bigby; shape-changing Big Bad Wolf and son of the storm god known alternately as Mr. North and the Great North Wind.

When the mortals of Siberia prove useless the Jungle Boy turns to the wolves and soon discovers what he needs. Meanwhile back in America on the farm Bigby’s cubs are growing increasingly hard to handle…

Of course Mowgli is eventually successful and Bigby returns to Fabletown, although not without some pretty conniving convincing, just in time for the celebratory 50th issue extravaganza which opens with ‘Secret Agent Man’ as Bigby undertakes an covert mission deep into the Adversary’s territory, reviews the Fables indescribably unique war-resources in ‘Castles in the Sky’ before dropping ‘Behind Enemy Lines’ to set up a spectacular confrontation and coup.

Breathtaking in its audacity ‘The Israel Analogy’ establishes a new relationship between Geppetto and the refugee Fables before Bigby returns to Earth in ‘Home is the Hunter’ for a different kind of confrontation and unexpected revelation with Snow White (long-abandoned mother of his cubs) in ‘Restoration’ leading to a reconciliation in ‘The Big Valley’ and ending, as proper stories should, in ‘The Wedding’. There’s even a pithy little epilogue ‘Mr. and Mrs. Wolf’ for all us helpless romantics…

Shawn McManus then illustrates ‘Big and Small’ wherein special emissary Cinderella goes to extraordinary lengths to maintain allies amongst both giants and mouse governments, which ends the narrative portion of this splendid tome but there are still treats in store beginning with assorted ‘Maps of the Fable Territories’ and ending with the complete script to Fables #50, illustrated by cover illustrator James Jean.

There is nothing around today that can touch this series for imagination, style and quality, and you’ll never know the real meaning of “happy ever after” until you turn on to this magnificent saga.

© 2006 Bill Willingham and DC Comics. All rights reserved.

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John Constantine, Hellblazer: Son of Man


By Garth Ennis & John Higgins (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-830-3

Garth Ennis ended a spectacular run on the urban wizard and all-around nasty-piece-of-work John Constantine in grand manner with Hellblazer: Rake at the Gates of Hell. By wrapping up all his loose ends and eradicating almost everything built during his tenure Ennis gave the regrettable impression that he was never coming back, but to every fan’s delight he returned with frequent collaborator John Higgins (see Pride and Joy) to craft this terrifying and pitiless tale of urban horror and twisted heritage set in the darkly charismatic London underworld.

During the Falklands War, when John Constantine was still in and out of criminal asylums, gang boss Harry Cooper asked a favour. Already well acquainted with the worst that Hell housed, the cocky young wizard knew true evil when it stuck a gun up his nose and was wise enough to comply.

With a few of his friends – for they weren’t all dead back then – he successfully resurrected Cooper’s dead son, and counted himself lucky to escape with his life and knees intact. No one, especially Cooper, needed to know just how he’d accomplished the impossible.

Twenty years later an older wiser man, he’s being harassed by Copper’s thugs and their bought coppers again. The kid’s all grown up now and taking over the family business, but his actions don’t make sense. Rather than making money, all his efforts seem destined to turn the city into a seething cauldron of race-hate and gang warfare: a literal Hell on Earth.

Now Constantine has to deal with the thing he brought back before it settles with him and all London too – but the outlook is far from rosy…

Collecting issues #129-133 of the monthly comicbook, this is an excellent blend of crime-thriller a la “Cool Britannia” with the signature black comedy-horror that Ennis has made his own, and the expressive, boldly subtle art of John Higgins perfectly captures the brutality, hilarity and sheer fear generated in this terrific thriller.

Grown-up comics simply don’t get better than this and both crime fans and horror lovers can pick this book up with no prior familiarity and still have the time of their lives…

© 1998, 1999, 2004 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Pride & Joy


By Garth Ennis & John Higgins (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-803-7

Garth Ennis has a well deserved reputation for shocking, moving and wickedly funny storytelling, and is accomplished in blending genres for maximum effect, as his successes with Preacher, Hellblazer, True Faith and a dozen other tales will attest.

One of his least regarded – in my opinion unjustly so – is this saga of a painfully domestic world turned upside down by an unredeemed past. It is a story of dreadfully ordinary folk with none of the baroque or flamboyant characters that populate regular fiction.

There’s this guy called Jimmy Kavanagh. His wife is long-dead, his son Patrick is at that revolting sulky teen age, but at least his little daughter Rachel is still the most beautiful girl in the whole world. Life is hard: his own dad, a war-hero, has just passed on, but the family are doing okay…

That all changes when Jimmy’s stupid past resurfaces. In 1972 he and a couple of his idiot friends dreamed they were going to be big-time hoods when they agreed to rip-off a gang boss. The gig had been planned by the boss’ bodyguard, Stein, who promised them a million dollars… Unfortunately for everybody but Jimmy, his pals were real shmucks, and cocked up the caper. Cops arrived, busted Stein before he could kill them all and took him away for twenty-to-life.

Scared straight by the experience, Jimmy got on with his life – until now. One night he gets a call and his world starts to implode. Coming home to finds the babysitter gutted like a fish. Stein is out and he wants revenge…

Gathering his kids and linking up with his old “colleagues” they go on the run together, but the hunter can’t be shaken and innocent people keep dying. Unable to bond with his son during their entire life together Jimmy finally, tragically connects with Patrick as the sorry saga comes to a small and dirty close…

With chilling echoes of Cape Fear (the 1962 Gregory Peck/Robert Mitchum version) this tale seeks to examine how ordinary people cope with ordinary evil: a cheap thug with a knife is just as deadly as a horde of vampires. You and your family can only die once – painfully, horribly; but just once. Pride and Joy is a tale about dreams and heritage and shows how mediocre people cope, illustrated with perfect subtle understatement by John Higgins. Nothing about this story is big or bold or bombastic: but it could really happen. It’s That Scary…

© 1997, 2004 Garth Ennis and John Higgins. All Rights Reserved.

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Vamps


By Elaine Lee and Will Simpson (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-220-2

As a long overdue antidote to the deluge of lovey-dovey, kissey-poo tales of forbidden love between innocent modern maids and moody, tragic carriers of the Curse of the Night’s Children, here’s a reminder of a different sort of Vampire Tale – one that is sleazy, nasty and very, very scary…

Vampires are heartless, bloodsucking raptors that wander the night, slaughtering whomever they wish. In this story set in the Badlands of modern America, they’re still generally regarded as creatures of myth, but apart from not turning into bats all the usual movie lore applies: fast, strong, non-reflective, scared of stakes and sunlight. The big new wrinkle is that blood gets them crazy-dumb drunk…

Our epic ride follows the liberating run of five hungry, hot and horny undead bad-girls called Screech, Whipsnake, Skeeter, Mink and Howler who begin their longed-for emancipation by finally killing Dave, the male Vamp who “turned” them all, then lorded it over them like a fat and lazy lion in a savannah Pride. After staking and dismembering him the girls go on a wild spree across the States, riding Harley’s down Hell’s highways, killing bikers and ne’er-do-wells (and the odd innocent bystander) wherever they find them.

They’re completely unaware that one of them has been manipulating her sisters all along and orchestrating the seemingly random slaughter. As a private detective and Howler’s psychic – and still breathing – sister Jenny tracks them, the pack hits Las Vegas and we discover that when she was alive Howler was a stripper whose baby was taken from her by a corrupt judge and sold in a black market adoption deal. Dave’s destruction, the road-rage, everything has been a plan to get her baby back.

All the pieces and pursuers are headed for a bloody crash and climax when Howler finally locates her son, but there’s an unwelcome complication: Dave has pulled himself together and is really, really annoyed…

Far more True Blood than Twilight (and predating both by more than a decade) this fast-paced, sardonic and gorily wild ride of love and death is a spectacular and absorbing riot by two of the industry’s best and most unsung talents: sordid, sexy and totally compelling, riddled with far deeper metaphors than “unrequited love sucks”, Vamps is a solid reminder that there are such things as monsters and some beasts just won’t be tamed…
© 1994, 1995 DC Comics.  All Rights Reserved.

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Jack of Fables: Jack of Hearts


By Bill Willingham, Matthew Sturges, Tony Akins, Steve Leialoha & Andrew Pepoy (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-628-3

In case you didn’t know, Fables are refugee fairytale, storybook and legendary characters who (which?) fled to our mundane Earth from their various mythic realms to escape a mysterious and unbeatable Adversary. Disguising their true natures from humanity they created enclaves where their immortality, magic and sheer strangeness (all the talking animals are sequestered on a remote farm in upstate New York) would not threaten the life of uneasy luxury they built for themselves. Many of these immortals wander the human world, but always under injunction never to draw any attention.

In Fables: Homelands the utterly self-absorbed and absolutely amoral Jack of the Tales (everyman hero of Beanstalk, Giant-killer, Be Nimble fame) did just that by stealing Fabletown funds and becoming a movie producer, creating the three most popular fantasy films of all time, based on (his version) of his life, consequently drawing physical power from the billions who inadvertently “believed” in him – and coining vast amounts of filthy lucre in the process.

A key tenet of the series is that the more “mundies” (that’s mundane humans like you and me… well, me anyway) who think about a fable character, the stronger that character becomes. Books TV, songs, all feed their vitality. In the first volume of his eponymous irreverent series Jack was brought low by the publicity-shy Fables Police: banished from Hollywood and ordered to disappear, with only a suitcase full of cash to tide him over.

He was captured and escaped from a particularly horrific fate – metaphysical neutering by The Golden Bough, a clandestine organisation that had been “vanishing” Fables for centuries – and is now on the run from those selfsame forces (in the attractive shape of the Page Sisters, dedicated hunters of everything Fabulous and Uncanny) after instigating a mass-break-out of forgotten and abridged Fables…

This second volume (collecting issues #6-11 of the Vertigo comicbook) opens with ‘Jack Frost’ illustrated by Steve Leialoha, as the legendary blowhard links up with a few other escapees in snow-bound Wyoming, and “entertains” everyone with the story of how he once knocked-up Lumi, the Snow Queen, after which he then helpfully “borrowed” her role in the supernatural cosmology and almost destroyed the cycle of Seasons before the Queen’s sisters Summer Spring and Autumn brought him to book…

The sharp eyed might notice that although the two chapters smoothly follow one another the attendant reproduced covers indicate that the concluding part was actually #11, not #7. Yes. Correct. You’re not wrong. Chalk it up to the magical drama of deadlines and move on.

‘Viva Las Vegas’ illustrated by Tony Akins and Andrew Pepoy, opens in that legendary Sin City with Jack waking up hung over and married to a cutie who is also the billionaire heiress who will one day inherit much of that aforementioned modern Gomorrah. But things aren’t as great as they seem. For starters Jack has somehow been reunited with fellow escapee Gary, the engagingly peculiar but trouble-attracting Pathetic Fallacy. For another, nobody likes an obvious gigolo gold-digger and everybody is trying to kill him. Most importantly though, the disgustingly bloodthirsty Fable Lady Luck already secretly controls Vegas and doesn’t want someone like Jack around just when her lost magic horseshoe has finally, serendipitously returned to the city after being missing for decades…

Saucy, self-referential, darkly, mordantly funny, this series is a deliciously whimsical fairytale for adults concocted with much more broad, adult, cynical humour and sex than your average comicbook – so mothers and matrons be warned! This enchanting series is a wonderful view of how the world should be and every volume should be compulsory reading for jaded fantasists everywhere.

© 2007 Bill Willingham and DC Comics. All rights reserved.

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Scalped volume 3 Dead Mothers

Scalped-volume-3-Dead-Mothers
By Jason Aaron & R.M. Guéra, John Paul Leon & Davide Furnò (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-997-0

Jason Aaron reaches new heights as he plumbs the depths of human depravity in the intoxicating crime thriller set on a desolate and desperate Indian Reservation. As powerful and compelling as TV’s “The Wire” Scalped similarly examines the survival tactics of a disenfranchised and abandoned minority that has had to make its own rules and then live or die by them. And just like the streets of Baltimore, the Prairie Rose Indian Reservation might be isolated and insular, but the powers that be – legitimate and otherwise – are not prepared to leave them alone…

Dashiell Bad Horse ran away from the squalor of the Prairie Rose Indian Reservation when he turned fifteen. He was always trouble: especially for his mother Gina and her fellow 1970s militant Indian Rights spokesman Lincoln Red Crow. Now Dash is back and working as Red Crow’s sheriff and leg-breaker, since the ex-activist is now Tribal Leader, sole employer and the area’s biggest crime boss.

Gina is still a rebel: she never surrendered, never copped out or joined the real world, whilst Red Crow became as much an oppressor as the White Man ever was. There’s a snazzy new casino but the Rez is still a hell-hole and a demilitarized Zone. Whilst wiping out rival drug and booze gangs Bad Horse is getting closer to the all-powerful Indian Godfather who was once his mother’s closest ally in the Freedom Movement. And that’s good. After all, that’s why the FBI planted him there in the first place…

The third collection (issues #12-18) kicks off with ‘Dreaming Himself into the Real World’; a beguiling prologue and scene-setter illustrated by John Paul Leon, before the eponymous main feature begins.

In ‘Dead Mothers’ Bad Horse is confronted by Gina’s brutal murder, but seemingly unmoved by it as he struggles to solve the equally savage but unconnected slaughter of a crack-whore bar-girl killed whilst her five kids slept in the next room. He’s a stone-cold pro: how did he ever let the kids’ situation get so deep under his skin when even his mother’s death left him unmoved?

In fact the only one who really seems broken up by Gina’s death is her long-time ally-turned-opponent Red Crow, and everybody knows he did it…

Pressure builds like an over-ripe boil as Bad Horse’s racist FBI handler puts the screws to him, and as prime suspect in Gina’s slaying Red Crow is getting squeezed by the Asian gangsters who paid for his casino. To assist the gang boss they’ve sent a psycho-sadist “observer” whose appetite for torture may well blow up in all their faces. Yet all Bad Horse can think of is the bar-girl’s death, but when he finds her killer the FBI say the monster is to be left free…

The book concludes with an insightful excursion into the mind and life of Franklin Falls Down, the only decent cop on the Rez, recently returned to duty after nearly dying in shoot-out. In ‘Falls Down’ (illustrated by Davide Furnò) the view of a decent man fighting evil daily in a man-made hell-hole makes a trenchant point after the human tragedy and misery that precedes it, but also hints at worse to come…

Nasty, violent, and sordidly sexual, this fierce Crime Noir is an uncompromising saga that hits hard, hits often and hits home. The exotically familiar scenario and painfully unchanging foibles of people on the edge make this series an instant classic. Grab hold and brace for the ride of your life…

© 2008 Jason Aaron & Rajko Milosevich.  All Rights Reserved.

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Madame Xanadu volume 1: Disenchanted


By Matt Wagner, Amy Reeder Hadley & Richard Friend (Vertigo)
ISBN13:  978-1-84856-288-2

Matt Wagner further blurs the boundaries between “straight” DC comics and the mature, independent Vertigo imprint – which actually drives continuity mavens raving bonkers – with this superbly fetching and compulsive yarn that manages the cunning legerdemain of telling a stand-alone tale for newcomers which also acts a clever piece of historical in-filling for readers steeped in the arcane lore of the magical aspects of DC universe.

Collecting the first ten issues of the lovely, thoughtful monthly comic, Disenchanted finally provides an origin for one of the most mysterious characters in the company’s pantheon, and makes her a crucial lynchpin in the development of a number of the company’s biggest stars.

Madame Xanadu debuted in Doorway to Nightmare, one of the last of DC’s 1970’s mystery stable (February 1978) and a rare deviation from the standard anthology format. She was a tarot reader who became peripherally involved in supernatural adventures of her clients, and was designed by Michael William Kaluta and Joe Orlando. The title ended after only five issues although four further tales appeared in The Unexpected, and one final solo adventure was released as DC’s second “Direct Sales only” title (in the early 1980s comics shops had become common enough that they could support titles that simply couldn’t find an audience on the sale-or-return newsstands).

After lurking in the musty and magical corners of the DCU for decades she finally got another shot at the limelight and to be honest it’s been worth the wait.

In the final days of Camelot the fairy Nimue, mistress of the Sacred Grove and sister to the Lady of the Lake and haughty Morgana, is disturbed by the growing chaos in the land. The puissant clairvoyant is unexpectedly visited by a stranger who urges her to act on her visions but she is proud and reluctant, and drives him away.

Meanwhile her lover Merlin is making dire preparations for inevitable battle and lets his loving mask slip. His dalliance with her is clearly only a pretence to obtain her secrets of immortality…

As Camelot falls and the land burns Merlin summons a demon from Hell to protect him and leaves it loose after the castle falls.  The stranger returns and urges Nimue to beware Merlin’s intentions, but although she is wary of the wizard she will not believe him capable of harming her.

She learns otherwise almost too late, binding Merlin in a magical snare, but the wizard’s revenge is terrible as with his last vestige of power he destroys her enchanted nature: with her potions she will still know magic but never again be magical…

Hundreds of years later she is seer for mighty Kublai Khan when the stranger appears again, guide to the expedition bringing Marco Polo to his heady destiny. Once again the stranger’s warnings are unwelcome but true and her perfect life and innocent friends suffer because she will not listen. She departs aware that the stranger believes he serves a purpose more important than innocent lives but when she confronts him he vanishes, as always, like a phantom…

In France she advises Marie Antoinette, both before and after she is dragged to the Bastille, and begs the ubiquitous stranger to save the tragic queen to no avail. When she finally returns to England she hunts Jack the Ripper, unable to fathom how the stranger can believe any cause more important than stopping this monster, and the story ends in 1930s New York in the fleeting moments before Supermen burst onto the world stage, finally discovering the strangers mission, and learning how her ancient antics shaped it…

Despite a huge coterie of magical guest-stars from Zatarra to Death of the Endless and the close tires to key moments of DC history, this is a delightful, glorious, romantic, scary stand-alone tragedy that any older fantasy fan and newcomer to comics could easily read… and really should.

© 2008, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.