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Annihilation Classic


By Todd Dezago, Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Marv Wolfman, Mark Gruenwald, Bill Mantlo, Doug Moench, Scott Edelman, Roy Thomas, Pat Broderick, Fred Hembeck, Derec Aucoin, Jack Kirby, John Buscema, Paul Ryan, Mike Mignola, Tom Sutton, Mike Zeck, Gil Kane & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3410-7 (TPB/Digital edition)

With the third Guardians of the Galaxy movie set to open on May 5th, here’s a brief reminder of what comics did to inspire the phenomenon: still a grand example of cosmic hero wonderment…

Annihilation was another of those company-wide publishing events that “Changed the Marvel Universe Forever” (and don’t they all?). which ran for most of 2006, involving most of the House of Ideas’ outer space outposts and cosmic characters. Among the stalwarts in play were Silver Surfer, Galactus, Firelord, Moondragon, Quasar, Star-Lord, Thanos, Super-Skrull, Gamora, Ronan the Accuser, Nova, Drax the Destroyer, The Watchers and a host of alien civilisations such as the Kree, Skrulls, Xandarians, Shi’ar, et al, all falling before an invasion of rapacious Negative Zone bugs and beasties unleashed by the insectoid horror Annihilus.

If you’re new to the Marvel universe and that bewildering list of daunting data didn’t leave you screaming in frustration, then please read on…

As is usual in these public herd-thinnings, a number of good guys and bad died and had their trademark assumed by newer, glitzier models whilst some moribund careers got a successful and overdue shot in the arm…

The event spawned a number of specials, miniseries and new titles (subsequently collected as three volumes plus this Annihilation Classic compilation reprinting key and origin appearances of some major players) and led to follow-up event Annihilation: Conquest. Of particular interest to fun-loving screen-watchers might be early appearances of Galaxy Guardians Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Starlord and Adam Warlock…

This sharp selection comprises of and contains pertinent material from Bug #1, (March 1997), Tales to Astonish #13, (December 1960), Nova #1, (September 1976), Quasar #1 (October 1989), Rocket Raccoon #1-4 (May-August 1995) ,Marvel Spotlight #6 (May 1980), Logan’s Run #6 (June 1977) and Marvel Premiere #1 (April 1972) and opens with the frenetic and light-hearted solo outing for Galactic Warrior Bug (originally a cheeky stalwart from the 1970’s toy-license phenomenon Micronauts)…

In ‘Apples and Oranges’ by Tod Dezago, Derec Aucoin, Rich Farber & Ralph Cabrera, the insectivorid from the Microverse accidentally clashes with all-consuming cosmic menace Annihilus and gets stuck in a time/space warp.

Bounced around the history of the Marvel Universe, the warring weirdoes reveal their unheralded contributions to the origin stories of a number of the company’s greatest stars before Bug finally triumphs…

With accompanying pinup by Pat Broderick and hilarious game pages by Fred Hembeck including ‘Bug’s Brain-Tik-lers’, ‘The Help Bug Right the Time/Space Continuum Board Game’, ‘What’s Wrong with This Picture?’ and ‘Bug’s Catch-All Activity Page’, this is a splendidly engaging and irreverent treat, followed by an absolute classic of the gloriously whacky “Kirby Kritter” genre as a humble biologist saved earth from a rapacious walking tree in ‘I Challenged Groot! The Monster from Planet X!’ (Tales to Astonish #13 by Stan Lee/Larry Lieber, Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers).

Next to grab the spotlight is The Man Called Nova who was in fact a boy named Richard Rider. A working-class nebbish in the tradition of Peter Parker – except he was good at sports and bad at learning – Rich attended Harry S. Truman High School, where his strict dad was the principal. His mom worked as a police dispatcher and he had a younger brother, Robert, who was a bit of a genius. Other superficial differences to the Spider-Man canon included girlfriend Ginger and best friends Bernie and Caps, but Rich did have his own school bully, Mike Burley…

An earlier version, “Black Nova” had apparently appeared in the author Marv Wolfman’s fan-mag Super Adventures in 1966 (produced with fellow writer Len Wein), but following a few revisions and artistic make-over by the legendary John Romita (Senior) the Human Rocket launched into the Marvel Universe in his own title, beginning in September 1976, ably supported by the illustration A-Team of John Buscema & Joe Sinnott.

‘Nova’ – borrowing heavily from DC’s Silver Age Green Lantern franchise as well as Spider-Man’s origin – is structured like a classic 4-chapter Lee/Kirby early Fantastic Four fable, and rapidly introduced its large cast before quickly zipping to the life-changing moment in Rider’s life when a star-ship with a dying alien aboard transferred to the lad all the mighty powers of an extraterrestrial peacekeeper and warrior.

Rhomann Dey tracked a deadly marauder to Earth. Zorr had already destroyed the idyllic world of Xandar, but the severely wounded vengeance-seeking Nova Prime was too near death and could not avenge the genocide. Trusting to fate, Dey beams his powers and abilities towards the planet below where Rider is struck by the energy bolt and plunged into a coma. On awakening the teen realises he has gained awesome powers …and the responsibilities of the last Nova Centurion…

Wendell Vaughn debuted in 1977 as S.H.I.E.L.D. super-agent Marvel Boy (Captain America #217), graduating and rebranding as Quasar during a stint as security chief of Project Pegasus during the early 1980s. He finally got an origin with his own title Quasar #1 (cover-dated October 1989).

He learned ‘The Price of Power!’ courtesy of Mark Gruenwald, Paul Ryan & Danny Bulanadi in a rousing romp wherein he washes out of agent training for lack of a killer instinct. Whilst acting in a security detail, Wendell dons alien quantum wrist-bands to stop them being stolen by AIM, even though they had vaporised every S.H.I.E.L.D. operative who had test-piloted them.

As well as not dying, he gained incredible quantum light powers and began a brief but glorious career as an Avenger and Protector of the Universe…

Rocket Raccoon was a minor character who appeared in brief backup sci fi serial ‘The Sword in the Star’ (specifically in Marvel Preview #7 in 1976). He won a larger role in Incredible Hulk #271 (May 1982), and like Wolverine years before, refused to go away quietly.

Reprinted here in its entirety is the 4-issue Rocket Raccoon miniseries (May to August 1985, as crafted by Bill Mantlo, Mike Mignola, Al Gordon & Al Milgrom): a bizarre, baroque sci-fi fantasy blending the edgy charm of Pogo with the biting social satire of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, all whilst ostensibly describing a battle between Good and Evil in a sector of space completely crazy even by comicbook standards.

Rocket was one of many talking animals populating the impenetrable, inescapable Keystone Quadrant; a Ranger in charge of keeping the peace as robots and anamorphic beasties went about their holy, ordained task of caring for the distinctly odd and carefree humans known as The Loonies on their idyllic, sybaritic planet Halfworld.

However when a brutal shooting war between voracious apex toymakers Judson Jakes and Lord Dyvyne led to Rocket’s girlfriend Lylla Otter being kidnapped, the planet went wild, or more accurately… ‘Animal Crackers’

In rescuing her, Rocket and his faithful deputy Wal Rus had to contend with a murderous army of mechanised Killer Clowns, face an horrific, all-consuming bio-weapon at ‘The Masque of the Red Breath’ and even team up with arch-foe and disreputable mercenary bunny Blackjack O’Hare before uncovering the horrendous truth behind the mad society he so tirelessly defended in ‘The Book of Revelations!’

The final chapter then shook everything up as ‘The Age of Enlightenment’ saw the end of The Loonies, allowing Rocket and his surviving companions to escape the confines of the eternally segregated Keystone Quadrant into the greater universe beyond…

Starlord (without the hyphen) premiered in 1976, headlining monochrome mature-reader magazine Marvel Preview # 4. He appeared thrice more – in #11, 14 and 15 – during the height of a Star Wars inspired Science Fiction boom.

Years previously, the warrior prince of an interstellar empire was shot down over Colorado and had a fling with solitary Earther Meredith Quill. Despite a desire to remain in idyllic isolation, duty called her starman back to battle and he left, leaving behind an unborn son and a unique weapon. A decade later, the troubled boy saw his mother assassinated by alien lizard men.

Peter Jason Quill vengefully slew the creatures with Meredith’s shotgun, before his home was explosively destroyed by a flying saucer.

The newly-minted orphan awoke in hospital, his only possession a “toy” ray-gun his mother had hidden from him his entire life. Years later his destiny found him, as the half-breed scion was elevated by the divinity dubbed the “Master of the Sun”, becoming StarLord. Rejecting both Earth and his missing father, Peter chose freedom, the pursuit of justice and the expanse of the cosmos…

Here, from Marvel Spotlight volume 2 #6, Doug Moench & Tom Sutton revisit and clarify that origin as the pacifistic Quill and his sentient starship return to Sol and discover the truth about his nativity and ascension as well as the true nature of The Master of the Sun…

Logan’s Run was a short-lived licensed property tie-in, and #6 incongruously featured a 5-page short starring mad Titan Thanos in battle against his precision-crafted nemesis Drax the Destroyer: a typically inconclusive, explosively violent out-world clash over ‘The Final Flower’ crafted by Scott Edelman & Mike Zeck.

This star-studded compilation then concludes with an allegorical masterpiece by Roy Thomas, Gil Kane & Dan Adkins from Marvel Premiere #1. During a time of tremendous social upheaval Thomas transubstantiated an old Lee/Kirby Fantastic Four throwaway foe into a potent political and religious metaphor. Debuting as a dreaded mystery menace, the character dubbed Him was re-imagined as a contemporary interpretation of the Christ myth and placed on a world far more like our own than the Earth of Marvel’s superhero-stuffed universe.

‘And Men Shall Call Him… Warlock!’ adroitly recapitulates the artificial man’s origins as a lab experiment concocted by rogue geneticists eager to create a superman they could control for conquest. After facing the FF, Him subsequently escaped to the stars and later initiated a naive clash with Thor over the rights to a mate before returning to his all-encompassing cocoon to evolve a little bit more.

Now that stellar shell is picked up by the moon-sized ship of self-created god The High Evolutionary who is obsessed with a bold new experiment. Our hand-made hero observes as the savant creates a duplicate Earth on the far side of the sun, fast-forwarding through billions of years of evolution in mere hours. The man-god’s intent is to create a civilisation without aggression or rancour, but the Evolutionary collapses from exhaustion just as proto-hominid becomes Homo Sapien and his greatest mistake takes instant advantage of his exhaustion to meddle with fate…

Years previously Man-Beast had been hyper-evolved from a wolf and instantly became his creator’s nemesis. Now he and his equally-debased minions invade the ship and interfere with the experiment: reintroducing evil to the perfect creatures below and, in fact, making them just like us. At incredible speed Earth’s history re-ran with the creature in the cocoon afforded a ring-side seat to humanity’s fall from grace…

When the High Evolutionary awakes to fight Man-Beast’s army, Him explodes from his shell to help rout the demons, who flee to despoiled Counter-Earth. With calm restored, the science-god prepares to sterilise his ruined experiment: a world now indistinguishable from our own. No superheroes; disease and poverty rampant; injustice in ascendance and moments away from nuclear Armageddon… but the cosmic newborn begs him not to.

He claims the evil tide can be turned and pleads for the Evolutionary to stay his hand. The grieving, despondent creator agreed… but only until the rechristened Adam Warlock should admit that humanity is beyond redemption…

This ends a magnificent compendium of genuine magical Marvel moments: an eclectic but hugely entertaining procession of thrills, spectacle and laughs no comic fan or interested neophyte could possibly resist. And when you’ve read all this, you’ll be properly primed for some wide screen wonders too…
© 2020 MARVEL.

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The Brave and the Bold volumes 1 & 2: The Lords of Luck and The Book of Destiny


The Lords of Luck By Mark Waid & George Pérez & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-649-8 (US HB) 978-1-84576-649-8 (TPB)

There are so many great graphic novels and compilations available these days that it’s always a shock when I realise how many more are still out of print. Here’s a classic example just begging for revival and digital editions…

The Brave and the Bold: The Lords of Luck collects the first 6 issues of another revival of a venerable DC title (technically volume 3 and spanning April -September 2007): returning it not only to the fitting team-up format we all enjoyed, but doing so with such style, enthusiasm and outright joy that I’m reduced to a gawping, drooling nine-year-old again.

Here Mark Waid, George Pérez and inkers Bob Wiacek & Scott Koblish crafted an intergalactic romp through time and nether dimensions, ripping across the DC Universe in a funny, thrilling and immensely satisfying murder-mystery-come-universal-conquest saga.

When Batman and Green Lantern (in part one ‘Roulette’ and concluding episode ‘The Girl Who Knew Too Much’) discover absolutely identical corpses hundreds of miles apart it sets them on the trail of probability-warping aliens and the missing Book of Destiny – a mystical chronicle of everything that ever was, is, and will be!

And yes, that makes this a notional tie-in to The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman and his coterie of classy creatives…

Each issue/chapter highlights a different team-up and eventually the hunt by Adam Strange, Blue Beetle (‘The Lord of Time’), Destiny (of the Endless, no less in chapter 4 ‘The Garden of Destiny’), the Legion of Super Heroes (‘The Batman of Tomorrow’), Lobo, Supergirl (‘Ventura’) and a mystery favourite from long-ago (you’ll thank me for not blowing the secret, honestly!) plus an incredible assortment of cameo stars coalesces into a fabulous free-for-all that affirms and reinforces all the reasons I love this medium.

With the value-added bonus of an annotated exploration of Waid & Pérez’s creative process to entrance the aspiring creator-of-tomorrow, this is a great story with great art, and is perfect for all ages to read and re-read over and over again. So let’s hope that happens soon…

© 2006, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

 

The Book of Destiny

By Mark Waid, George Pérez, Jerry Ordway, Bob Wiacek & Scott Koblish (DC Comics)

ISBN: 978-1-4012-1838-6 (HB) 978-1-4012-1861-4 (TPB)

The Book of Destiny is a mystical ledger which charts the history, progress and fate of all Reality and everything in it – except for the four mortals entrusted with its care at the end of The Brave and the Bold: The Lords of Luck. The death-defying Challengers of the Unknown – cool pilot Ace Morgan, indomitable strongman Rocky Davis, intellectual aquanaut Prof. Haley and daredevil acrobat Red Ryan – live on borrowed time and were bequeathed the terrifying tome by Destiny of the Endless since their lives are no longer included within its horrifying pages…

After the staggering spectacle of the previous Brave and the Bold story-arc, here Waid & Pérez, with inkers Bob Wiacek & Scott Koblish are joined by co-penciller Jerry Ordway for a stunning sequel featuring most of the DC universe…

This compilation collects issues #7-12 (volume 3 from December 2007-June 2008) of the high-energy, all-star revival of the venerable DC title: playing novel games with traditional team-up format as a mysterious mage begins manipulating heroes and villains in a diabolical alchemical scheme to transform the cosmos fundamentally and forever…

Beginning with ‘Scalpels and Chainsaws’ – wherein Wonder Woman and the ever-abrasive Power Girl rub each other the wrong way (oh please, what are you, ten!?) whilst tackling an undead invasion, the case takes a stranger turn and Kara-Zor-L accidentally discovers the Caped Kryptonian has been brainwashed into trying to murder her cousin Superman…

Their ill-tempered investigations lead to the fabled Lost Library of Alexandria and a disastrous confrontation with the deranged Dr. Alchemy, but he too is only a pre-programmed pawn – of a sinister presence called Megistus – who needs Power Girl to use the mystical artefact known as the Philosopher’s Stone to turn the Fortress of Solitude into pure Red Kryptonite…

Thanks to Wonder Woman’s battle savvy, the plot is frustrated and the stone thrown into the sun… just as Megistus intended…

All this has been perused in the mystic chronicle by the Challengers and their fifth member Dr. June Robbins – whose merely mortal existence and eventual doom are tragically recorded in the Book. They rush off to investigate a universe-rending menace even as ‘Wally’s Choice’ brings The Flash and his rapidly aging children Jai and Iris West into unwelcome contact with manipulative genius Niles Caulder and his valiant Doom Patrol. “The Chief” claims he can cure the twins’ hyper-velocity malady, but Caulder never does anything for selfless reasons…

With no other hope, Wally and wife Linda acquiescence to the mad genius’ scheme – which relies on using elemental hero Rex Mason to stabilise their kids’ critical conditions. It might have worked, had not Metamorpho been mystically abducted mid-process – consequently transforming the children into bizarre amalgams of Negative Man and Robot Man…

Worst of all, Flash is almost forced to choose which child to save and which should die…

Thinking faster than ever, the Scarlet Speedster beats the odds and pulls off a miracle but, in a distant place, the pages of the Book are suddenly possessed and abruptly attack the Challengers…

‘Changing Times’ features a triptych of short team-up tales which play out as the Men that History Forgot battle a monster made of Destiny’s pages, beginning as the robotic Metal Men joined forces with young Robby Reed who could become a legion of champions whenever he needs to Dial H for Hero.

Sadly not even genius Will Magnus could have predicted the unfortunate result when crushingly shy robot Tin stuck his shiny digit in the arcane Dial…

Next, during WWII the combative Boy Commandos are joined by The Blackhawks in battling animated mummies intent on purloining the immensely powerful Orb of Ra from a lost pyramid, after which perpetually reincarnating warrior Hawkman joined All-New Atom Ryan Choi in defending Palaeolithic star-charts from the marauding Warlock of Ys.

None of them are aware that they are doing the work of malignly omnipresent Megistus…

The fourth chapter paralleled the Challengers’ incredible victory over the parchment peril with a brace of tales seeing the Man of Steel travel to ancient Britain to join heroic squire Brian of Kent (secretly the oppression-crushing Silent Knight) in bombastic battle against a deadly dragon, whilst the Teen Titan’s untold second ever case finds Robin, Wonder Girl and Kid Flash in Atlantis for the marriage of Aquaman and Mera.

Unfortunately Megistus’ drone Oceanus crashes the party, intent on turning Aqualad into an enslaved route map to the future…

And in California, the Challengers attempted to save Green Lantern’s Power Battery from being stolen only to find it in the possession of an ensorcelled Metamorpho…

As the Element Man easily overwhelms Destiny’s Deputies, Jerry Ordway assumed the penciller’s role for issues #11-12.

‘Superman and Ultraman’ saw the natural enemies initially clash and then collaborate at the behest of an alternate universe’s Mr. Mixyezpitelik, who reveals the appalling scope and nature of Megistus’ supernal transformational ambitions, leading to a gathering of the heroic clans and a blistering Battle Royale in the roaring heart of the Sun…

With the fate of reality at stake and featuring a veritable army of guest stars ‘The Brave and the Bold’ concludes the saga with a terrible, tragic sacrifice from the noblest hero of all, whilst subtly setting the scene for the then-upcoming Final Crisis…

With fascinating designs and pencil drawings from Ordway to tantalise the art lovers, this second captivating collection superbly embodies all the bravura flash’n’dazzle thrills superhero comics so perfectly excel at. This is a gripping fanciful epic with many engaging strands perfectly coalescing into a frantic and fabulous free-for-all overflowing with all the style, enthusiasm and exuberant joy you’d expect from top costumed drama talents.

The Brave and the Bold: The Book of Destiny is another great story with great art, ideal for kids of all ages to read and re-read over and over again.
© 2007, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Yakari volume 20: The Cloud Maker


By Derib & Job, coloured by Dominique and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-074-6 (Album PB/Digital edition)

In 1964 children’s magazine Le Crapaud à lunettes was founded by Swiss journalist André Jobin, who then wrote for it under the pseudonym Job. Three years later he hired fellow French-Swiss artist Claude de Ribaupierre AKA “Derib”. The illustrator had launched his own career as an assistant at Studio Peyo (home of Les Schtroumpfs): working on The Smurfs strips for venerable weekly Le Journal de Spirou.

Thereafter, together they created the splendid Adventures of the Owl Pythagore before striking pure comics gold a few years later with their next collaboration. Derib – equally au fait with enticing, comically dynamic “Marcinelle” cartoon style yarns and devastatingly compelling meta-realistic action illustrated action epics – went on to become one of the Continent’s most prolific and revered creators. It’s a crime that groundbreaking strips such as Buddy Longway, Celui-qui-est-nà-deux-fois, Jo (first comic to deal with AIDS), Pour toi, Sandra and La Grande Saga Indienne) haven’t been translated into English yet, but we still patiently wait in hope and anticipation…

Over the decades, much of Derib’s stunning works have featured his beloved Western themes: magnificent geographical backdrops and epic landscapes. Yakari is considered by fans and critics to be the strip which led him to his deserved mega-stardom.

Debuting in 1969, it traces the eventful, nomadic life of a young Oglala Lakota boy on the Great Plains – according to this tale, in the vicinity of the Great Lakes Basin. The stories are set sometime after the introduction of horses by the Conquistadores, but before the coming of modern Europeans.

The series – which also generated two separate animated TV series and a movie – is up to 42 albums thus far: a testament to its evergreen vitality and brilliance of its creators, even though originator Job moved on and Frenchman Joris Chamblain took on the writing in 2016.

Overflowing with gentle whimsy and heady compassion, little Yakari enjoys a largely bucolic existence: at one with nature and generally free from privation or strife. For the sake of our delectation, however, the ever-changing seasons are punctuated with the odd crisis, generally resolved without fuss, fame or fanfare by a little lad who is smart and brave – and can, thanks to a boon of his totem guide the Great Eagle, converse with all animals…

In 1995, Le souffleur de nuages was the 21st European album, but – as always with the best books – the content and set-up are both stunningly simple and sublimely accessible, affording new readers total enjoyment with a minimum of familiarity or foreknowledge required…

Here and now it is painfully topical as Yakari’s wandering people are stranded as springtime rains inundate the entire region. When the downpour finally stops, the land is devasted by flooding and the little wonder and his valiant pony decide to check on all their animal pals. Happily, Little Thunder is an excellent swimmer…

They don’t go far before meeting beaver patriarch Thousand-Mouths, whose frantic efforts to rally the clan for a major repair job to the lodge and dams is being hampered by bone idle slacker Wooden Bed. Just like any teenager, he just wants to sleep…

Water is everywhere, and the landscape is a sea broken by tiny islands. The prairie dog colony are marooned on one, waiting until it all recedes so they can clear out their great burrow. They are also nervously contemplating the ominously cloud-filled sky…

Pressing on, the horse and his boy reach a flooded forest and find raccoon Black Mask and his kin fractiously sharing a tree with grumpy owl. Nobody is happy, but all are resigned to waiting out the weather…

That night, back in camp and very much appreciating being warm and dry, Yakari has one of his special, prophetic dreams. It shows him more rains washing away his tipi (tent) until it is washed up onto a big white cloud…

Happily, morning brings better news. The waters have clearly receded, but – still perplexed by his vision – Yakari rides Little Thunder back along yesterday’s route just to check. Everywhere, industrious animals are clearing up and making good, and with so much to see and beasts to check on, the pair are far from home when the sun sets.

Bedding down under a large rock, they are later awakened by an odd cry coming from the river. Closer examination in the morning reveals the disturbance came from a pond linked to the swiftly flowing waters. Oddly, a small cloud is escaping from the turbulence. When Yakari dives in for a closer look, he is abruptly raised up into the air by a giant white fish surfacing under him!

The incredible snow-white monster turns out to be a chatty and gregarious beast calling itself a “white whale”. The curious Beluga had travelled along the swollen river from the “Great Water” Yakari had seen when travelling with spirit creature Nanabozho. Soon they are all trading life stories…

The boy names his new chum Peeleepee because of the cry it constantly utters, and discovers that despite living in the ocean, the newcomer needs air to live, water to support his weight and makes clouds from the top of his head…

In a remarkably short time they are all great friends and have learned lots of each other’s worlds. The boy and the beluga even trade tricks and acrobatic games, but the idyl is rudely shattered when a passing toad points out that, while they’ve been romping, the waters have further evaporated. The great white wonder is now trapped in an isolated pond far from the river it needs to live or get home by…

Snotty but smart, the amphibian then suggests a possible solution, but it takes all of Yakari’s friends working together, sheer luck, applied physics and the boy’s considerable negotiating skills to ensure the safety of the stranded newcomer before this ending turns out happy…

Yakari is one of the most unfailingly absorbing all-ages strips ever conceived and should be in every home, right beside Tintin, Uncle Scrooge, Asterix and The Moomins. It’s never too late to start reading something wonderful, so why not get back to nature as soon as you can?
Original edition © Derib + Job – Editions du Lombard (Dargaud – Lombard s. a.) – 2000. All rights reserved. English translation 2022 © Cinebook Ltd.

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Bizarro Comics! – The Deluxe Edition


By a big bunch of very funny people AKA Jessica Abel, Todd Alcott, Rick Altergott, Peter Bagge, Kyle Baker, Gregory Benton, Charles Berberian, Aaron Bergeron, Nick Bertozzi, Ariel Bordeaux, Rand & David Borden, Ivan Brunetti, Eddie Campbell, Jim Campbell, Dave Cooper, Leela Corman, Mark Crilley, Jef Czekaj, Farel Dalrymple, Brian David-Marshall, Paul Dini, Paul Di Filippo, D’Israeli, Evan Dorkin, Mike Doughty, Eric Drysdale, Ben Dunn, Philippe Dupuy, Sarah Dyer, Phil Elliott, Hunt Emerson, Maggie Estep, Bob Fingerman, Abe Foreu, Ellen Forney, Liz Glass, Paul Grist, Matt Groening, Tom Hart, Dean Haglund, Tomer & Asaf Hanuka, Dean Haspiel, Danny Hellman, Sam Henderson, Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez, Matt Hollingsworth, Paul Hornschemeier, Dylan Horrocks, Nathan Kane, John Kerschbaum, Chip Kidd, Derek Kirk Kim, James Kochalka, John Krewson, Michael Kupperbaum, Tim Lane, Roger Langridge, Carol Lay, Jason Little, Lee Loughridge, Matt Madden, Tom McCraw, Pat McEown, Andy Merrill, Scott Morse, Peter Murrietta, Tony Millionaire, Jason Paulos, Harvey Pekar, Will Pfeifer, Paul Pope, Patton Oswalt, Brian Ralph, Dave Roman, Johnny Ryan, Alvin Schwartz, Marie Severin, R. Sikoryak, Don Simpson, Jeff Smith, Jay Stephens, Rick Taylor, Raina Telgermeier, Craig Thompson, Jill Thompson, M. Wartella, Andi Watson, Steven Weissman, Mo Willems, Kurt Wolfgang, Bill Wray, Jason Yungbluth, & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-7795-1012-9 (HB/Digital)

Here am big, dull shopping list of top-ranking cartoonists from beginning of twenty-oneth century. Bunch of names not very entertaining, but what they draw and write am, especially when taking loving pot-shots at beloved DC Comics icons and moments…

I’ll happily go on record and say that practically all of the fun and true creativity in comics has come out of the ‘alternative’ or non-mainstream writers and artists these days. To prove my point I’d list a bunch of things, and very near the top of that list would be this book -actually two older, smaller books sensibly nailed together in 2021.

In its near 90 years of comics publishing, DC Comics has produced many of the most memorable, most engaging and most peculiar comic characters and concepts you could imagine. For all that, they also managed to stir echoes and forge a deep and abiding affection in the hearts and minds of some of the most creative people on the planet.

As I’ve already said, the material in this titanic tome of titters (sorry, apparently I’m channelling my inner Frankie Howerd today) first emerged in a brace of cartoon anthology volumes: Bizarro Comics and Bizarro World in 2001 and 2005, disrespectively.

They delivered fast and furious skits, sketches and gags by profoundly engaged – often deeply disturbed – fans turned pros. There was a heavy dependence on small-press and self-published creators all used to having complete control of their work…

It was all meant to make you laugh and feel longing for simpler whackier times, and the Introduction by Kyle Baker should be all you need to steer you through what follows.

If I were you, I’d stop here and just buy the book, but just in case you’re a stubborn holdout, I’m going to add to my editor and proof-reader’s many woes by listing exactly who is in the thing, what they did and even add a few critical comments, just to earn my keep.

Then I’ll make my poor staff read the book too, just to cheer them up after all my word salad…

Following Matt Groening’s Bizarro Comics cover (which you get here for free) lurks a hilarious framing sequence, as a monstrous unbeatable creature attempts to conquer Mr Mxyzptlk’s 5th dimensional home. Chris Duffy & Stephen DeStefano – aided by legendary cartoonist and colourist Marie Severin – tell a weird and wonderful tale of outlandish failed Superman clone Bizarro that begins in ‘Bizarre Wars Part One’ and diverges into a wonderland of individual battles against cosmic games player A.

As the appointed defender of the entire endangered dimension, Bizarro resorts to a heretofore unsuspected ultimate power: producing comic strips featuring unfamiliar adventures of DC’s most recognizable heroes that come to life …ish.

Cue a veritable Who’s Who of the cool and wonderful of modern comics creating a plethora of wacky, dreamy, funny, wistful and just plain un-put-downable strips that would delight any kid who read comics but then accidentally grew up.

In rapid rollercoaster fashion and Fighting the Goof Fight for reality come ‘Bizarro-X-Ray One’ by Gregory Benton, Bizarro-X-Ray Two’ by John Kerschbaum and Bizarro-X-Ray Three’ by Gilbert Hernandez – all coloured by Tom McCraw. Sam Henderson & Bob Fingerman reconvene the ‘Super-Pets’ whilst Duffy & Craig Thompson expose Green Lantern in ‘The Afterthoughts’. Chip Kidd & Tony Millionaire revisit early days of ‘The Bat-Man’ in stylish monochrome before Henderson, Dean Haspiel, Bill Oakley & Matt Madden recount the silly charm-packed saga of ‘Captain Marvel and the Sham Shazam’…

Baker & Elizabeth Glass test the mettle of ‘Letitia Lerner, Superman’s Babysitter!’ and Aquaman endures double trouble as Evan Dorkin, Brian David-Marshall, Bill Wray & Matt Hollingsworth draw attention to ‘Silence of the Fishes’ before Andy Merrill & Jason Little douse the Sea King in ‘Porcine Panic!’

Fingerman, Pat McEown, Oakley & Hollingsworth inflict ‘The Tinnocchio Syndrome’ on The Metal Men before Andi Watson, Mark Crilley & Lee Loughridge orchestrate ‘Wonder Girl vs Wonder Tot’ and James Kochalka, Dylan Horrocks & Abe Foreau pit Hawkman against ‘The Egg-Napper!’, even as ‘The GL Corps: The Few, The Proud’ glean more story glory courtesy due to Will Pfeifer, Jill Thompson, Clem Robins, Rick Taylor & Digital Chameleon.

Horrocks, Jessica Abel & Madden then see Supergirl and Mary Marvel have a moment in ‘The Clubhouse of Solitude’ whilst Nick Bertozzi & Tom Hart tune in to ‘Kamandi: The Last Band on Earth!’ before Jeff Smith, Paul Pope & Loughridge depict Bizarro demanding ‘Help! Superman!’ as Jef Czekaj & Brian Ralph confront Aquaman with ‘The Man Who Cried Fish!’ in advance of Wonder Woman pondering ‘One-Piece, Two-Piece, Red-Piece, Blue-Piece’ on a shopping trip organised by Fingerman & Dave Cooper.

Ellen Forney, Ariel Bordeaux & Madden probe a young girl’s ‘Bats Out of Heck’ and Eddie Campbell, Hunt Emerson, Rick Taylor & Digital Chameleon went full-on Batmaniacal in ‘Who Erased the Eraser’ before Crilley & Watson negotiate a shocking ‘First Contact’ with The Atom, after which The Batman invites us ‘Inside the Batcave’ with Pope & Jay Stephens as tour guides.

Dorkin, D’Israeli & Digital Chameleon expose ‘Solomon Grundy: Bored on a Monday’ before Alvin Schwartz, Roger Langridge & Loughridge debut ‘The Most Bizarre Bizarro of All’ and Ivan Brunetti, Dorkin & Sarah Dyer reveal ‘That’s Really Super, Superman!’ to The World’s Finest Team whilst Dorkin, Carol Lay, Tom McCraw & Digital Chameleon invite everyone to ‘The J’onn J’onzz Celebrity Roast’ before Bordeaux, Forney & Madden share ‘Wonder Woman’s Day Off’…

The initial volume and that framing Mxyzptlk yarn are coming to a close as Dorkin, Wray, John Costanza & Hollingsworth craft ‘Unknown Challenges of the Challengers of the Unknown’ and Dorkin, Steven Weissman & Dyer go to bat for all the forgotten creature sidekicks in ‘Without You, I’m Nothing’ before Duffy, DeStefano, Phil Felix, Severin & Digital C reunite for the climactic conclusion of ‘Bizarre Wars – Part Two’…

If you haven’t heard of anybody on that overwhelming list then get Googling. Then get this book and get enjoying.

No? that’s okay… There’s More…

The turn of this century was a particularly fraught time – aren’t they always? – and one of the best ways to combat the impending travail was to make people laugh. A follow up to the remarkably successful Bizarro Comics again invited a coterie of alternative comics creators (and guests!) to make sport of various hallowed DC icons. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and all the lesser gods were dragooned into more tales humorous, dolorous and just plain peculiar, drawn in an eye-wrenching range of styles. Many of those involved continued to display a disturbing knowledge of, if not respect for, the DC continuity of the 1960s whilst others seem to centre on the TV and Movie interpretations, but the fondness for times gone by was readily apparent throughout.

Behind a Bizarro World cover from Jaime Hernandez, Rian Hughes & Coco Shinomiya is unsurprisingly story ‘Bizarro World’ by Duffy, Scott Morse, Rob Leigh & Dave Stewart as a couple of unwary kids fall into a universe stuffed to overflowing with everyday super people…

Answers come from a crusty reporter with extensive files and notes from many stringers…

Kidd, Millionaire & Jim Campbell review ‘Batman with Robin the Boy Wonder’ and Merrill, Langridge & Madden get seasonally silly in ‘Jing Kal-El’, whilst Mo Willems, Forney & Madden reveal ‘The Wonder of it All’ for the youthful feminist before Foreu, Kochalka & Madden have shapeshifter Chameleon Boy ask ‘Where’s Proty?’

Nostalgia and childish wish-fulfilment masterfully merge in pants-wettingly funny ‘Batman Smells’ by American National Treasures Patton Oswalt, Fingerman & Stewart, whilst Duffy & Craig Thompson channel ‘The Spectre’ and Jasons Yungbluth & Paulos confirm with Hal Jordan that ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green’ even as Aaron Bergeron & Kerschbaum revel in ‘The Power of Positive Batman’…

Mike Doughty & Danny Hellman’s Fish-out-of-water ‘Aquaman’ segues into another true Stand Out story: ‘Batman: Upgrade 5.0’ by Dean Haglund & Peter Murrieta, illustrated by Don Simpson, before comics bad boy John Ryan joins Dave Cooper to explore being ‘Super-Dumped’ via the sad story of Clark and Diana…

Elsewhere, Dorkin & M. Wartella retroactively introduce Batman to ‘Monkey, the Monkey Wonder’ whilst comics verité legends Harvey Pekar & Dean Haspiel declare ‘Bizarro Shmizarro’ just as Dylan Horrocks, Farel Dalrymple & Paul Hornschemeier proposition ‘Dear Superman’ on behalf of a youngster with a secret…

‘The Red Bee Returns’ courtesy of Peter Bagge, Gilbert Hernandez & Madden, after which Eric Drysdale, Tim Lane, Oakley & Madden organise ‘The Break’ for the JLA. Dorkin & Watson then find The Legion of Super-Heroes ‘Out with the In Crowd’ just as Todd Alcott, Michael Kupperman & Ken Lopez detail the ‘Ultimate Crisis of the Justice League’…

Tomer & Asaf Hanuka join Lopez & Campbell to define ‘Batman’ whilst Paul Dini & Carol Lay have the very last word on ‘Krypto the Superdog’ and Ariel Bordeaux & Rick Altergott unwisely launch ‘Legion.com’ before mercurial Harvey Dent enjoys a ‘Dinner for Two’ thanks to Dorkin & Iva Brunetti…

Maggie Estep & Horrocks take on ‘Supergirl’ and her horsey history before Leela Corman & Tom Hart steer a ‘Power Trip’ for Batgirl, Wonder Woman and the Girl of Steel, whilst Eddie Campbell, Paul Grist & Phil Elliott schedule ‘A Day in the Life in the Flash’ before hilariously reprising their manic madness via ‘The Batman Operetta’…

Bizarro returns in an activity page from his ‘Daily Htrae’ – by Dorkin & R. Sikoryak – and the GL Corps turn Japanese in ‘Lantern Sentai’ from Rand & David Borden of Studio Kaiju, manifested by multi-talented Benn Dunn. Philippe Dupuy & Charles Berberian then offer a continental touch in ‘Batman of Paris’, Kurt Wolfgang & Brian Ralph have fun with ‘The Demon’ and John Krewson, Dorkin & Dyer expose ‘Kamandi, The Laziest Boy on Earth’.

Despite all the craziness, the best has wisely been left until last and end begins with The Justice League of America regretting ‘Take Your Kids to Work Day’ (by Dave Roman & Raina Telgemeier) whilst ultimate manservant Alfred Pennyworth conducts his master’s business as a “Personal Shopper” thanks to Kyle Baker & Elizabeth Glass, before we finish with Deadman who learns with horror – from Paul Di Filippo & Derek Kirk Kim – that ‘Good Girls Go to Heaven. Bad Girls Go Everywhere’…

What do you get if you give a whole bunch of vets and alternative comics creators carte blanche and a broad brief? You should get this.
© 2001, 2005, 2021 DC Comics. All rights reserved.

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Hedy Lamarr: An Incredible Life


By William Roy & Sylvain Dorange, translated by Montana Kane (Humanoids/Life Drawn)
ISBN: 978-1-59465-619-4 (PB/Digital edition)

It’s been a man’s world almost from the start, and for so very long, most roles we’ve allowed for women have been ones that benefit us. Just why are so many female heroes young, pretty, buxom and nearly naked?

…And don’t even try to mansplain away why and how we Lords of Creation settle down with a housekeeper/mother who provides fringe benefits, comfort breaks and data storage. “Honey, do I like this?” “Darling, where are my…?”

Happily, despite all our most determined efforts, women keep on being independent, resolute, optimistic, free thinking and autonomous: constantly confounding male expectations and forcing us to gaslight, denigrate, diminish or bully them back into submission… or at least ominous silence…

It doesn’t always work, but at least whenever they achieve triumphant, spectacular highs and enjoy their own lives, it’s on their own terms – at least until some guy finds a way to make them regret it…

Let’s see an example of that as it happened to one of the most important human beings in modern history. Hedy Lamarr: La plus belle femme du monde was released in 2018: a superbly engaging, vividly realised passion project by writer, artist and documentarian William Roy (De Père en FIV, Freud, Le moment venu) and multi-disciplined illustrator Sylvain Dorange (For Justice: The Serge & Beate Klarsfeld Story, Gisèle Halimi – Une jeunesse tunisienne, Un conte de l’Estaque, Les Promeneurs du Temps, Psychotique). It quickly became one of the most important biographies of recent times. You can even read it in English or online…

Delivered in non-sequential snippets and clippings, it all slots together like a puzzle to show how, as a Viennese youngster, Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler developed two life-long passions: acting and learning how things worked. The latter obsession came thanks to her beloved father Emil, a progressive, forward-looking banker who shared at every opportunity a profound love of knowledge and tinkering with his beautiful child …

Concerned by the uninvited attention their daughter’s looks were garnering, Hedwig’s parents decided to never comment on her appearance. However, as she grew from pretty child to ravishing young woman, those looks inevitably shaped her world.

As a teenager one passion dominated: so much so that the model student began taking unsanctioned truant days to pursue acting – especially in the burgeoning, high-tech film business. When her parents learned of the school absences, they granted her leeway to explore those options. Hedwig initially sought to become a script girl, but once again her beauty took her to a different destination and one moment as an “extra” opened up a whole new world…

Emil loved how she shared his fascination with how things worked, but primarily he just wanted her to be happy. Thus, Hedwig learned to roll with life’s punches – and in later life there were many – but was generally supported in her wild endeavours. She never realised how the acting lessons her father willingly paid for would lead to her becoming a notorious, global figure of infamy after a highly sexualised nude scene in 1933 drama Extase…

Just as the film was being banned in Austria, neighbouring Germany welcomed a new Chancellor. Adolf Hitler would affect the girl’s life in unimaginable ways…

Retreating from celluloid to a life of stage acting, Hedwig was pursued by astoundingly rich manufacturer and businessman Friedrich “Fritz” Mantel. Dazzled by wealth, rapt attention, and honied words, she eventually married him.

Despite her Jewish ancestry, as the wife of Mussolini’s best friend and the Third Reich’s favourite arms dealer/munitions supplier, Hedwig spent the early years of Nazism cushioned from a growing horror. Hosting dinner parties for human monsters whilst incessantly, invisibly overhearing fascinating details about the new weapons hubby was pioneering quickly paled, and Mantel’s obsessive possessiveness and controlling behaviour soon made her realise the liaison was a huge mistake.

Whilst displaying his trophy wife like a prize, and bedecking her with jewels and gems, Mantel had spent a fortune buying up and destroying every print of Extase. No man would ever cast lascivious eyes on his property ever again…

Increasingly terrified, Hedwig crafted a plan and escaped her marriage, eventually landing in London in 1937. At that time American movie mogul Louis B. Mayer – supreme dictator of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios – was there to scout out sophisticated European film talent fleeing growing social unrest…

Like so many women and girls maturing in that era, Hedwig learned to be suspicious of authority and men in powerful positions: to keep her secrets to herself whenever possible. She probably always sought assured security and never believed she had it, even at the top of a wildly fluctuating showbiz career. At least inventing kept her grounded and allowed her to find an escape that was purely personal. Mayer was a lifeline, but he too came with conditions…

In 1938, Hedy Lamarr began her tenure as a Screen Goddess with the movie Algiers. Mayer had her billed as “the most beautiful woman in the world” and changed her name to evoke that of deceased silent movie star Barbara La Marr. According to this version of her story, he also never stopped urging her to enhance her bust…

A wash of films followed, of remarkably varying quality, but work, acclaim, marriage and the heady social whirl wasn’t a satisfying existence. When war came, Hedy was eager to help. It coincided with her first meeting engineering marvel/millionaire playboy Howard Hughes. He wasn’t as impressed as others by her looks, but wanted to hear all about her inventions…

Almost as notorious as any role she played, Hedy knew many men, but had few male friends. Foremost of those she did persist with was George Carl Antheil, a “piano prodigy” who had first outraged the musical establishment in 1924 with his Ballet Mechanique score.

The Dadaist work was delivered by player-pianos working in synch with airplane engines, and Antheil had meticulously cut out the player rolls of each instrument personally, in a monumental feat of pre-computer coding and programming…

Antheil was also an acclaimed and published endocrinologist who supported his family by composing Hollywood film music, and first met Hedy Lamarr during another of her fruitless, pointless searches for a safe way to embiggen her boobs…

In the course of their friendship they discussed German torpedoes and – recalling past dinner conversations amongst Nazi bigwigs – Hedy had an idea that would have shortened the war; and did change the way all humanity communicates…

Typically, Lamarr and Antheil’s un-jammable torpedo was poo-poohed and rejected by the US Navy and a congressional committee who were astonished to notice that the project had no actual Male Scientists attached to it. It’s a good thing the inventors had every bit of the work, concept and attendant programming patented…

One admiral did helpfully suggest that she could serve her country best by selling war bonds, so she did, in record-breaking amounts…

Years passed, husbands and families came and went, and Hedy’s career devolved from megastar to TV guest celebrity to self-imposed exile. In 1960 she got her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and six years later an autobiography she maintained she never wrote was released. It pretty much trashed what was left of her reputation.

It all turned around for her in 1996, when her son Anthony Loder was contacted by representatives of the burgeoning telecommunications industry. They really needed to speak to the inventors – and patent-holders – of a frequency-hopping system devised to protect torpedoes from being jammed. It was also the absolute best way to connect multiple electronic devices via radio waves”. We call it wi-fi these days…

This is an emphatic, empathetic dramatisation of a much-told tale and an inevitable, inescapable theme, but Hedy Lamarr: An Incredible Life shows not that resilience pays off, or that it all works out in the end, but that remarkable achievements cannot be buried or diminished…

After all, how many gullible kids tricked into getting their baps out change the entire world, all of human culture and get an asteroid and a quantum telescope named after them, let alone get awarded an anniversary goggle doodle and inducted into the National Inventor’s Hall of Fame, and are interred in a National Honorary grave?

Admit it, though, it was the bit about her baps that made you sit up and pay attention, right?

The struggle continues…
© 2018 La Boîte à Bulles. All Rights Reserved. This edition © 2018 Humanoids, Inc., Los Angeles (USA).

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A Treasury of Victorian Murder Compendium II


By Rick Geary (NBM/ComicsLit)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-907-6 (Digest HB)

Master cartoonist Rick Geary is a unique presence in both comics and true crime literature. His compelling forensic dissections – in the form of graphic novel reconstructions – of some of the most infamous and groundbreaking murder mysteries since policing began never fail to beguile or entertain.

Although outrageously still unavailable digitally, for many years Geary’s unblinking eye powerfully probed the last hundred years or so in his Treasury of XXth Century Murder series. Prior to that, he first began graphically capitalising on a fascination with Mankind’s darker aspects way back in 1987, via a delicious anthologised tome entitled A Treasury of Victorian Murder.

That initial volume and 3 of the 8 that succeeded it (Jack the Ripper, The Fatal Bullet and The Beast of Chicago) were combined and re-issued in 2012 as a splendidly morbid monochrome deluxe hardback – because, after all, bloody murder is always a black and white affair…

More of his most compelling past triumphs were gathered into a second blockbusting 400-page monochrome hardback to delight fans of the genre and, without a shadow of a doubt, make new converts out of the as yet unconvinced…

Combining a superlative talent for laconic prose, incisive observation and meticulously detailed pictorial extrapolation with his gift for recounting the ruthless propensities of humans throughout history, Geary ceaselessly scoured police blotters, newspaper archives and even history books to compile more irresistibly infectious social sins and felonious infractions.

His unique cartooning style is the perfect medium to convey starkly factual narratives in a memorable, mordant and undeniably enjoyable manner. Each epic endeavour is accompanied by an Introduction and scholarly Bibliography, with most adaptations also offering splendidly informative maps and diagrams to set the stories firmly in place.

Starting off this largely ladykiller-laden catalogue of crime is The Borden Tragedy, digging through an abundance of details surrounding one of the most infamous – if not mythic – crimes ever perpetrated.

In Fall River, Massachusetts on August 4th 1892, prosperous self-made man Andrew Borden and his second wife Abby were found slain inside their own home. Death in both cases was caused by multiple axe blows.

Rather than his later neutral narrative stance, here Geary illustrates the “first-hand account” of an acquaintance of youngest daughter Lizzie Borden who – after much inept investigation and public speculation – was settled upon by the authorities as the likeliest suspect.

Many and various suppositions, theories, scandals and gossip-points are scrupulously examined as she stands trial for the crimes – a case muddled by a subsequent axe-murder whilst Lizzie was actually in custody – and the spotlight follows her through the much-protracted case, past her acquittal and to her eventual death in 1927…

The graphic re-enactment is accompanied by a copious photo and text section featuring a wealth of ‘Press Clippings of the Time’ as well as a reproduction of ‘Borden’s Indictment’ and The Boston Advertiser article on her eventual “Not Guilty” verdict.

The Mystery of Mary Rogers concerns the assault and murder of a New York City cigar shop girl which mesmerised the citizenry in 1841. Such was the furore that author Edgar Allen Poe appropriated the events for his C. Auguste Lupin tale The Mystery of Marie Roget: a rather unwise move, since he knew the deceased and thereby opened himself up to loudly-voiced suspicions of complicity…

The facts are that on the 28th July 1841, a number of well-to do-citizens left stifling Manhattan Island for the Jersey Shore and there discovered the body of the “Segar Girl” floating in the Hudson; battered, strangled and with her hands tied across her chest.

A hasty autopsy and even quicker inquest, held under insultingly cavalier circumstances, produced no culprits or suspects but somehow managed to throw suspicion on everyone from the men who pulled her out of the water to her drunken suicidal fiancée and even her own mother…

A talking point for all and sundry from the highest society paragon to the lowliest street trash, her death produced ever-more scandalous revelations and groundless lewd rumours – all scrupulously explored by Geary – over the next few years, but the case remains unsolved still…

The Saga of the Bloody Benders began in largely unsettled Kansas, during the period immediately following the American Civil War, when a family of German-speaking immigrants settled near the Osage Trail. There they built a General Store-&-Hotel equidistant between the nascent townships of Cherry Vale, Parsons and Thayer.

By the time they vanished four years later, provably ten but probably many, many more travellers and settlers had been robbed and murdered. Thereafter, the insalubrious Benders simply vanished from the sight of man…

Geary, with supreme style and dry wit, presents the facts and the best of the rumours in his inimitable style to create yet another unforgettable masterpiece of Gothic whimsy.

The Case of Madeleine Smith focused on the true and scandalous secret affair between Emile L’Anglier, a low-born French clerk, and prim, proper, eminently respectable Miss Madeleine Smith, daughter of a wealthy Scottish merchant.

The slow poisoning of the Gallic Romeo led to a notorious trial in the 19th century and the eventual verdict shocked everyone and satisfied nobody…

The entrancing chronicle of carnage and venality concludes with the epic account of The Murder of Abraham Lincoln, covering the 62 days from 4th March to May 4th 1865, when actor John Wilkes Booth and a band of like-minded Confederate diehards schemed to murder the President (and other Northern politicians they held responsible for the destruction of the South), and how their wild plot came to startling, implausible fruition…

Following the Inauguration Ceremony for his second Term of Office, the normally fatalistic and security-disparaging President Lincoln was troubled by unease, disquiet and dreams of assassination. They might have been possibly generated by the sack-full of death threats stashed away by his Secretary John Hay.

Elsewhere, Secessionist sympathiser Booth was planning a blow for revenge and personal immortality, but increasingly found his co-conspirators a disappointing bunch. Driven and desperate, he persevered for his cause…

All the many players are scrutinised in Geary’s careful examination, with the peculiar circumstances that left Lincoln vulnerable counterbalanced by insights and minutiae provided into his less-than-fanatical nemeses.

Only one of the many assassinations planned by the Secessionist cabal came to anything, and following that foul deed, grisly death-watch and post mortem, Geary’s depiction of the bold but inept manhunt which followed is capped here by Booth’s satisfyingly dramatic end, leaving nothing but the artist’s masterful summing up to ask the questions nobody has answered yet and leave us all with the certain knowledge that this too is a murder still largely unexplained if not unsolved…

These compelling cold cases are a perfect example of how graphic narrative can be so much more than simplistic fantasy entertainment, and such merrily morbid murder masterpieces as these should be mandatory reading for every mystery addict and crime collector.

Such seductive storytelling, erudite argument and audacious drawing produce an irresistible dash and verve which makes for unforgettable reading: Geary is a unique talent in the comic industry, as much for his style as his subject matter and methodology in telling tales. Always presenting both facts and the theories – contemporary and modern – with chilling graphic precision, captivating clarity and devastating dry wit, he attacks criminology’s greatest mysteries with a force and power even Oliver Stone would envy, and every true crime podcaster should admire…
© 1997-2007, 2015 Rick Geary.

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Whiteout volume 1 & volume 2: Melt – Definitive Editions


By Greg Rucka & Steve Lieber & various (Oni Press)
ISBN: 978-1-932664-70-6 (TPB vol 1) 978-1-932664-71-3 (TPB vol 2) 978-1-620104-48-4 (TPB compendium)

When done right there’s no artistic medium which can better depict the myriad intricacies of a murder-mystery than the comic strip.

These superb and seminal slices of crime fiction were the 2D debut of novelist Greg Rucka and saw up-&-coming artist Steve Lieber achieve his full illustrative potential in a gripping chiller set in a world where, despite appearances, nothing is simply black and white…

Originally released in 1998 as a 4-part miniseries from Oni Press, Whiteout introduced disgraced Deputy U.S. Marshal Carrie Stetko, suffering banishment to the ends of the Earth – generally known as McMurdo Station, Antarctica – following a tremendous and unforgivable screw-up during her Stateside duties.

Seamlessly filling in crucial background detail as it swiftly progresses, we learn Antarctica is an international “Neutral Zone” co-managed by the USA, Britain, Russia, Argentina, Chile, Australia and other nations. Here, mineral exploitation is forbidden by treaty, military weapons are proscribed and there are 400 men to every woman. Antarctica is a place where all Man’s basest instincts are curtailed by official accord – or at least that’s the global party line…

In the cold and isolated outpost Stetko doesn’t go out of her way to adapt, settle in or make friends. This a place where few people stay for more than a few months, whether they’re involved with the military, explorers, scientists or even dubious business types.

It’s dull drudgery all the way… but that ends when Carrie is called out to examine a body on the ice…

The face has been horrendously removed from the brittle corpse but the remote surroundings are a mess, with multiple deep core-samples removed from the frozen wastes. Stetko wouldn’t even be involved if the body hadn’t been clad in a parka with American flags on it. Even after prying the cadaver loose from the ice, she has to wait days for it to thaw enough before the camp doctor everyone calls Furry can begin an autopsy.

More worryingly, further investigation reveals the international research expedition was supposed to comprise five men: two Americans, a Briton, an Argentinean and an Austrian. Where and who are the other four?

Sole friendly face Furry is having little luck with the body. Somebody has employed an ice hammer to make sure identification is impossible, but the diligent doc gets enough from the remains of the feet to fax off prints to the U.S. Eventually, details come back and Stetko starts searching for the killer of American citizen Alexander Keller… who is NOT one of the research team at all…

Interviewing the pilot who ferried the team out generates no leads, and days are wasted checking other bases by radio. Moreover, time is running out. With True Winter coming, most camps are preparing to shut down: ferrying all but the most essential staff back to civilisation until a slightly more hospitable Spring makes life on the ice survivable again. Once “Winter-over” begins, the killer will be impossible to find…

When she gets a call back from British-administered Victoria Station that two of the missing team are there, Carrie catches her first break by hitching on a flight ferrying Australian pilot John Haden to his next gig. Despite his easy charm and manner, Carrie knows something is not right about him…

Rendezvousing with officious administrator Lily Sharpe, Carrie refuses to wait out another impending storm. Eventually, both women venture out onto the ice to find the outlying cabin of the missing men. As they enter, they’re attacked by an axe-wielding masked man who has just killed both of her suspects in the same way Keller was dispatched…

Giving chase into the storm, Carrie is overpowered and her vital guide-wire cut. Lost in a binding whiteout with the temperature drastically dropping by the second, she is going to die mere feet from safety and will not be found for months… or at all…

As Sharpe recovers and follows, Stetko has, with Herculean determination and a deal of sheer luck, found a temporary sanctuary where she is safe if no longer sound. She never will be again…

Lost in delirium and suppressed memories, Carrie almost fights her way free from her last-minute rescuer but is at last taken to the Station’s infirmary. When fit enough to travel, the Marshal is ferried back to McMurdo by the mysterious Lily who reveals that the two remaining suspects have been spotted on the ice at Amundsen-Scott base.

As much through anger and resentment, at her boss’ insistence Carrie, with Sharpe in tow, heads after them. On reaching the far station she receives an astounding surprise on spotting “dead man” Keller in the canteen…

Sharpe, meanwhile, has the last two suspects. Or at least, their bloody, battered remains…

Keller eludes the Marshal and lies hidden in Sharpe’s plane, where he finds her gun. According to the Antarctica Treaty, all weapons are banned on the jointly-administered continent, but that’s far from being the British woman’s biggest secret sin…

Everything kicks into high gear as Keller and hidden allies mercilessly strike back before the mystery is exposed and murky motives are revealed as the stunning conclusion reveals just how dangerous trust can be in a land which scours the heart and soul every minute of every day…

Smart, cynical and intoxicatingly devious, this superb fair-play murder mystery was one of the best comics crime capers in a generation, and promptly spawned a sequel.  In Whiteout Rucka & Lieber created a powerful and determined truth-seeker wedded to a ferociously evocative and utterly distinct milieu in which to prove her worth.

Riding a wave of critical acclaim, writer and artist reunited for searing sequel Melt: another 4-issue miniseries released by Oni Press from September 1999 to February 2000 before being gathered into its own graphic novel compilation.

This dark, bleak tale begins with a quick body-bestrewn history lesson on Antarctica, from the deadly duel between Scott and Amundsen and following frantic scurry – and brief brush wars – by a host of nations hungry to possess the territory. That ceased in 1961, when Cold War caution and the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction resulted in the Antarctic Treaty.

This landmark pact saw the region designated a neutral area reserved for purely scientific research: one where all military activity was strictly prohibited.

Antarctica is still a bizarre Neutral Zone co-managed by many nations, where mineral and commercial exploitation is completely forbidden. At least officially…

In this follow-up fable, US Marshal Stetko is recuperating in New Zealand when the American embassy drags her in just so a CIA spook named James can tell her she’s going back to the ice – voluntarily or not.

The Agency monitors chatter and has discovered that a Russian science station has been destroyed by an explosion, with the loss of all 14 personnel. They believe it was no accident. Overruling Stetko’s arguments about jurisdiction, the Feds tell her she’s going to investigate, or “offer help, in the spirit of the Treaty” because – despite her naive beliefs – every nation represented officially present in Antarctica has weapons stockpiled there – even the “good guy” Americans – and Tayshetskaya Base was just such an armoury/staging ground for potential conflicts…

Weathering a tirade of threats and discounting a wealth of promised bribes, Carrie soon finds herself on a plane heading due south. At the burned-out site of the base she’s greeted – if not welcomed – by her Russian opposite number Pyotr Danilovich and his emergency team. The harassed investigator studiously knows nothing and is severely disquieted when Stetko points out that one of the burned bodies from the “accident” has a bullet hole in it.

Of course, according to the Treaty, all weapons are banned, but this isn’t like anything she’s seen before…

Leaving Pyotr desperately trying to convince himself that it’s all just a mistake and accident, Carrie wanders through burned-out wreckage and plunges through the flooring into a hidden room stuffed with crates of small arms. In a corner are three empty crates marked with the tri-foil – international symbol for radiation. The Russians had stored nukes here – and they’re gone now…

Far away, six killers race away on snowmobiles with their prizes, but have no appreciation or understanding of the ice. After crashing into a hidden crevasse there are only five…

Back at Tayshetskaya, a mysterious Russian arrives. Captain Aleksandr Ivanovich Kuchin claims to be Carrie’s official back-up and liaison: tasked by his government with giving her all the assistance she needs. He disarmingly and disingenuously adds that he’s also there to quash any embarrassing scandal…

He confirms that the killer thieves are former Speznaz: mercenaries who have seized the nukes for a client and will smuggle them out over the ice rather than through more reasonable channels. After checking in with her own bosses, Carrie is told to get them – and proof of the Russian government’s treaty-breaking – if she ever wants to leave Antarctica…

Using satellite tech, Stetko and Kuchin narrow down the mercs’ current location and set off after them on skis, but the mutually suspicious manhunters almost die in a booby trap and are buried alive in a crevasse…

Forced to trust each other for the duration, they brilliantly extricate themselves to resume the chase. They have an unsuspected ally: brutal remorseless Antarctica is gradually eroding the confidence and capability of the fleeing killers: now reduced to four cold, slowly dying men. Sadly, the ice plays no favourites and tries its damnedest to kill Carrie and her stoic companion too…

After surviving a huge storm, Carrie wakes up alone and – suspicions sadly confirmed – sets off after duplicitous Kuchin. She does not know the cagy Russian has been captured by their quarry and faces a most unpleasant end, but neither the mercs nor their intended victim realise the US Marshal has found their lost and flash-frozen comrade and now possesses the very best in freelance weaponry and camouflage…

Escalating into an inevitable, spectacularly bloody climax, this grim, gritty and stunningly gripping thriller confirms Carrie Stetko’s guts, resolve and sheer smarts in a devastating display of swift, effective, problem-solving violence and propensity to do the right thing no matter what the cost…

Sharp, hard-boiled and savagely ultra-cool, this magnificent cold-hearted intercontinental caper was a sublime second outing for one of the best female crimebusters in comics and remains a wonderful experience for mature readers to while away cold, lonely nights.

In 2017, these chilly classics were reissued in a classy compendium edition which sadly did nothing to offset the appalling 2009 movie adaptation that had followed the original comic’s release. Just remember Films are not the intended ended result of comics. Read the stories as intended and have as much fun as you can in your own head.

… And agitate for the returns of Carrie Stetko…

™ & © 1998, 1999 2007 Greg Rucka. All rights reserved.

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Madame Xanadu volume 1: Disenchanted


By Matt Wagner, Amy Reeder Hadley, Richard Friend & various (DC/Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2291-8 (TPB)

After the Vertigo imprint carefully aligned a number of DC properties beyond an iron curtain of sophisticated suspense and grown-up tale telling, in the early 21st century Matt Wagner was at the forefront of reuniting the divided camps. He successfully blurred the boundaries between mainstream DC continuity and the story-driven experimentation of mature, independent Vertigo. Although it still drives continuity mavens raving bonkers, stuff like this graphic gold – a superbly fetching yarn which tells a stand-alone tale for newcomers whilst also being a smart piece of historical in-filling for dedicated readers – is steeped in the arcane magical lore of DC’s multiverse, allowing old guard readers to pick and mix with spectacular effect. This sort of subtle side saga eventually led to the full integration of storylines in the “New 52” and after…

Collecting the first 10 issues of the lovely, thoughtful monthly comic that was the third volume of Madame Xanadu, Disenchanted finally provided an origin for one of the most mysterious characters in the company’s pantheon, and made her a crucial connection and lynchpin in the development of a number of the company’s biggest stars.

Madame Xanadu originally debuted in Doorway to Nightmare #1 (cover-dated February 1978): one of DC’s last 1970’s mystery stable, and a rare deviation from the standard anthology format. As designed by Michael William Kaluta & Joe Orlando, she was a wilfully enigmatic but benign tarot reader who became (peripherally) involved in the supernatural adventures of her clients.

The incarnation ended after only five issues although four further tales appeared in The Unexpected, and one last solo adventure was released as a one-shot billed as DC’s second “Direct Sales only” title.

After lurking in the musty, magical corners of the DCU for decades, she finally got another shot at the limelight. It was well 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 growing chaos in the land. However, when the puissant clairvoyant is unexpectedly visited by a Stranger who urges her to act on her visions, 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 exposed as mere 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, urging 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, and seeks to bind Merlin in a magical snare, but the wizard’s retaliation 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 will she be magical…

Centuries later she is seer for mighty Kublai Khan when the stranger appears again: guiding the expedition conveying Marco Polo to his heady destiny. Once again, the enigma’s warnings are unwelcome but true, and again Nimue’s complacent sheltered life and innocent friends suffer because she will not listen.

She departs, painfully aware that the Stranger believes he serves a purpose more important than innocent lives. When she confronts him he vanishes – as always – like a Phantom…

Time marches on: 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 such a monster. The episodic epic pauses for now in 1930s New York, during the fleeting moments before masked avengers and costumed supermen burst onto the world stage. Here Nimue finally discovers what the stranger’s mission is, learning how her ancient antics shaped it…

Despite hosting a huge coterie of magical guest-stars, from Etrigan to Zatarra to Death of the Endless and delightfully disclosing close ties to key moments of DC’s shared history, this is a fabulous, glorious, romantic, scary stand-alone tragedy starring one of the most resilient women in comics, and a classic long overdue for revival and one that any fervid fantasy fan and newcomer to comics could easily read… and really must.
© 2008, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Barbarella volume 1 & Barbarella and the Wrath of the Minute Eater (volume 2)


By Jean-Claude Forest, adapted by Kelly Sue DeConnick (Humanoids)
ISBN: 978-1-59465-533-3 (HB/Digital edition vol. 1) 978-1-59465-104-5 (HB/Digital edition vol. 2): 978-1-64337-883-1 (TPB combined 2 vols)

Europe’s post-war fascination with science fiction and baroque space opera arguably all stems from the innocently raunchy antics of a starry-eyed gamin holding forthright, ultra-modern views on sexual politics. Jean-Claude Forest’s Barbarella stimulated public acceptance of socially-inclusive futuristic themes in an era of Cold War and Atomic Anxiety: one that coincided with a highly publicised “sexual revolution” that was simultaneously beloved of and excoriated by screaming pundits and headline writers.

…And it all occurred just as France was locked into a momentary but absolute obsession with “sex kitten” Brigitte Bardot…

France’s love affair with speculative fiction actually goes back – at least – to the works of Jules Verne and maybe even as far as Cyrano de Bergerac’s posthumously published fantasy stories L’Autre Monde: ou les États et Empires de la Lune (The Other World: or the States and Empires of the Moon) and Les États et Empires du Soleil (The States and Empires of the Sun). They were first released in 1657 and 1662.

Happily for us, European comic iterations have always been groundbreaking, superbly realised and deeply enjoyable…

Proudly Parisian Forest (1930-1998) was a graduate of the Paris School of Design who began selling strips while still a student. His Fleche Noire (Black Arrow) feature opened a career illustrating for newspapers and magazines like France-Soir, Les Nouvelles Littéraires and Fiction throughout the 1950s. This was whilst producing Charlie Chaplin-inspired comic series Charlot and being chief artist for Hachette’s sci fi imprint Le Rayon Fantastique.

For this last client, Forest also produced illustrations and covers for translations of imported authors A. E. Van Vogt, Jack Williamson, and others.

Thus in 1962, with headlines trumpeting liberation and armageddon in the home and for the family, Forrest created Barbarella in V-Magazine. The innocently super-charged sex icon quickly took country and world by storm, generating an explosion of like-minded SF Bandes Dessinées features. Her first collected album was released by Editions Eric Losfeld in 1964, with further tales released until 1982. Those later stories were illustrated by Daniel Billon and the entire canon has never been out of print for long.

Forest never looked back, subsequently creating Baby Cyanide and more serious fare like Hypocrite; the Verne-inspired Mysterious Planet; La Jonque fantôme Vue de l’Orchestre and Enfants, c’est l’Hydragon qui Passe. He also found time to script for other artists: Les Naufrages du Temps (translated as Castaways in Time or Lost in Time) with Paul Gillon in 1964; Ici Meme for Jacques Tardi, and occult detective series Leonid Beaudragon for Didier Savard. These have been inexplicably all-but-ignored by English language publishers since the 1980s. If you read French, however, all are available in print and digitally…

The First Lady of Space sparked a Franco-Belgian fantasy mini-boom – classic series like Méziéres & Christin’s Valérian, Greg & Eddy Paape’s Luc Orient and Philippe Druillet’s Lone Sloane among so many others – thereby triggering the creation of dedicated periodical touchstone Métal hurlant in 1974.

At that time Forest was still finding new worlds for Barbarella to conquer, even though outside the Continent the concept was pretty much hijacked by Roger Vadim’s 1968 movie adaptation.

Here, however, we’re concentrating on Forest’s comics, as re-adapted and translated by Kelly Sue DeConnick (Bitch Planet, Pretty Deadly, Captain Marvel, Wonder Woman, Castle, Avengers). The stories then and now are very much in the manner of every British newspaper strip leading lady since Jane (so, see also Axa, Danielle, Amanda, Scarth, George and Lynn, et al) and follow the plot of classic Flash Gordon strips…

Barbarella volume 1 finds a free, independent young woman, self-willed and over 21, curiously and confidently wandering away from Earth: taking to space to find a new lover, having had more than enough of her old one…

Now she’s having guilt-free relations with any rational and consensual creature, mechanism or being she wants to, but abruptly finds her travels interrupted when her ship breaks up over planet Lothion. The world is divided into a number of autonomous city states where her ever-intimate introduction procedure for new cultures provides moments of baffled bewilderment and deadly danger…

Tumbling into a war between exploitative horticultural aristocrats and their too-slowly expiring, no-longer required serfs, she finds a solution to the crisis and escapes to clash with a cosmic desert jellyfish, before leading space-crash survivors to relative safety before an eerie encounter with deadly beautiful Medusa…

Attrition takes its toll, and ultimately, only Barbarella and hunky stud Dildano make a desert crossing to a bizarre underground forest, where the feudal Olopiades harvest sunlight to battle underground terrors and a hunting-obsessed madmen regards everyone else as potential trophies…

More subterrine voyaging – beside untrustworthy Martian companion Klill – deposits her in Yesteryear, where history-besotted minor royalty take an instant dislike to the free-spirited Earthling libertine – who is almost murdered by spoiled princesses…

Frantic flight brings them to the outskirts of wicked city Sogo, where aging Earth scientist Durand (originally Durand Durand pop trivia fans!) acquaints them with the perils of its lethal defensive labyrinth. Here bizarre outcasts huddle to escape the dread perversion of the vile Black Queen who rules all and courts utter chaos…

Allied to blind angel Pygar and other noncommittal rebels, Barbarella’s innate innocence is key to deposing the debauched tyrannical sovereign and ending her paranoid reign of terror…

 

Second volume Barbarella and the Wrath of the Minute Eater began as 1974’s Les Colères du Mange-Minutes which finds the cosmic nomad voyaging across the void as owner/manager of a travelling show of bizarre beasts and beings: Circus Delirium.

Amongst her exotic menagerie of exhibits is cunning water-breathing humanoid Narval whose revelations regarding a time and space warping device masks his sinister secret agenda.

Despite protestations of faithful clown Bill, Narval’s sly manipulations gradually convince Barbarella to traverse cosmic barriers and take their “astronef” vessel to the interface between the normal cosmos and a region of reality where time itself runs differently. In the heart of that weird destination lies chronally adrift planet Spectra…

It is another world of vastly disparate sectors, where Barbarella makes more friends and lovers, constantly becomes embroiled in political and revolutionary strife, experiences the inexplicable and indescribable and generally wrecks another planet’s cultural identity, replacing it with something new.

Supreme amongst them is Narval himself, who seeks to mutate into a more superior form and subsequently conquer many planets…

On this occasion, sleeping with the enemy is a tactic that finally fails our peace-loving wonder and in the end Barbarella fails her own philosophy, by taking the abhorrent but necessary steps to stop him…

Unquestionably a comics landmark, yet expounding a few questionable swinging Sixties attitudes us folk from the future might take exception to, these wild voyages reshaped our fictions if not our consensual reality, and are a canon of celestial wonders everyone should see at least once.

In 2020, Humanoids released a trade paperback edition combining both albums in one single commemorative volume.

© 2014, 2015, 2022 Humanoids’, Inc., Los Angeles (USA). All rights reserved.

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Doc Savage® Archives volume One: The Curtis Magazine Era


By Doug Moench, John Warner, John Whitmore, illustrated by John Buscema, Tony DeZuñiga, John Romita, Rico Rival, Marie Severin, Neal Adams, Marshall Rogers, Val Mayerik, Rich Buckler, Klaus Janson, Ed Davis, Tom Sutton, Ernie Chan, Bob Layton, Dick Giordano & various (Dynamite Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-60690-514-2 (HB/Digital edition)

Before comic books, thrill-starved readers endured the travails of the Great Depression by regular doses of extraordinary excitement derived from cheaply produced periodical novels dubbed – due to the low-grade paper they were printed on – “pulps”. There were hundreds published every month, ranging from the truly excellent to the pitifully dire: seemingly catering to every conceivable style, taste and genre.

The process spawned a new type of star and kind of story: damaged modern knights who were mysterious, implacable and extraordinary to the point of superhumanity, confronting uncanny overwhelming evil. In this fresh adventure medium, two-star characters outshone all others. The first was The Shadow – a true trendsetter who pioneered and beta-tested most of the methodology and mystique later mastered by Batman and most superheroes. Soon after him came the Superman of his day: Doc Savage, the Man of Bronze…

In the early 1930s, The Shadow was a dark, relentless, unstoppable and much-imitated creature of the night preying on the wicked and dispensing his own terrifying justice (and for more about him check out the Dark Avenger review). A true game changer tailor-made by a committee of wise heads and a superb scripter, Street & Smith Publications’ The Shadow set the world on fire, and those savvy savants sensibly sought to repeat the miracle. The result was a modern Hercules, Plato, Hippocrates, King Arthur, Sherlock Holmes and Einstein rolled into one gleaming, oversized paragon of physical perfection.

The big man and his team of globe-trotting war-buddy science specialists had been cobbled together by publisher Henry W. Ralston, editor John L. Naonvic and writer Lester Dent, using the same gameplan that had materialised The Shadow. Editorial notions and sale points of the bosses were fleshed out, filled in and made to work by Dent, who – under house pen-name Kenneth Robeson – wrote 159 of the 181 original novels released between March 1933 (Happy Birthday Doc!) and Fall 1949. The other exploits were handled in whole or in part by ghost writers and assistants Harold A. Davis, Ryerson Johnson, Laurence Donavan, Martin E. Baker, William G. Bogart and Alan Hathway.

The core premise is delicious and instantly engaging. Clark Savage Jr. had been trained from infancy in all arts and sciences, even as he underwent a carefully-devised program and regimen of physical training and sensory stimulation to make him impossibly fast, strong, hardy, acute, astute and – to be honest – pretty smug.

The perfect “Competent Man” was forever solving manic mysteries and protecting the helpless – when not quietly puttering away improving the lot of humanity with his inventions and pioneering medical procedures. However, this self-appointed hero and champion was what we’d probably now call an overachieving abuse survivor. For example, his unique viewpoint deemed it sound and reasonable to cure “evil tendencies” with brain surgery…

Despite such caveats (different times, right?) “Doc” Savage and his militarily-distinguished apex troubleshooters, Renny, Johnny, Long Tom, Ham and Monk were hugely popular in prose, print, radio and comics: a fascinating prototype example of a superhero team.

They regularly aided the oppressed and exploited: battling mad geniuses, would-be world conquerors, scary monsters, weird forces, dictators and uncommon criminals, before fading from view as the 1940s closed. They stormed back into popular culture during the 1960s, revived as part of global fantasy boom which also resurrected The Shadow, Conan, the C’thulu mythos and so many other pulp stars and craftsmen. Doc was particularly memorable thanks to such magazine exploits being reprinted in iconic Bantam Books paperbacks sporting stunning covers by James Bama…

Savage and his “fabulous five” had been funnybook stars since 1940: firstly in Street & Smith’s own The Shadow #1-3, and then in their own Doc Savage Comics (1940-1943). He thereafter appeared intermittently in The Shadow and Supersnipe Comics until 1948.

In November 1966, an abortive movie of The Thousand-Headed Man came to nothing, but did result in a one-shot tie-in from Gold Key Comics by Leo Dorfman & Jack Sparling. It also sported a lovely cover by Bama…

During an era of nostalgia, Marvel secured rights to publish Doc Savage comics: adapting the novels Man of Bronze, Brand of the Werewolf, Death in Silver and The Monsters over 8 regular issues between October 1972 and January 1974. There was also a giant-sized special and Doc entered Marvel continuity by teaming with Spider-Man and The Thing.

George Pal’s movie Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze was released in June 1975. Heavily hyped but an eventual flop, it nevertheless prompted Marvel to revive their license: creating a monochrome magazine version combining interviews and articles with darker, more mature comics adventures. The movie was fun but misunderstood and underappreciated, but it allowed true fans to see how their hero should always have been handled…

This hefty compilation re-presents all the material originally included in Doc Savage Magazine #1-8, spanning cover-dates August 1975 to Spring 1977. It is called the “Curtis Magazine Era” because that’s the name of the affiliated distribution company Marvel were part of at the time, and indicated a separate imprint producing comics outside the remit of the restrictive Comics Code Authority rules.

Thus, following Roger Kastel’s stunning full-colour painted cover (based on a movie poster) and a publicity photo frontispiece of actor Ron Ely beside an iconic Bama cover painting, Doc Savage #1 opens with Marv Wolfman’s ‘An Editorial in Bronze’ and John Romita (Sr.) & Tony DeZuñiga’s potent ‘Pin-up art’. This is mere prelude to an extra-long, peril-packed period drama by writer Doug Moench and illustrators John Buscema, Romita & DeZuñiga whose cunning comics chills commence with ‘The Doom on Thunder Isle!’.

When a Manhattan skyscraper is razed to rubble by lightning, Doc and his team are drawn into a missing persons case involving socialite Angelica Tremaine, her architect brother Winston and fiancé Thomas J. Bolt…

A complex plot rapidly unfolds, involving her, them and a suicidally fanatical kidnap gang seemingly based in the clouds, before Doc deduces the actual tropical island location of the foe. Deploying his many signature war-machines and leading his team in a brief but brutal clash against mutant beasts, super-science weapons and ancient madness, Doc learns even he cannot foil or fix all the cruel experiments of the insane Silver Ziggurat…

Following a contemporary body building ad (!), Jim Harmon & Chris Claremont interview director/producer ‘George Pal… The Man Who Made Doc Savage’ to end the first foray…

Scots artist Ken Barr painted the other covers, the first of which precedes Marv Wolfman’s editorial in #2 asking ‘Why Couldn’t Ron Ely Be Short and Ugly?’ (augmented by Marie Severin cartoons) before dark doom and destruction arrives in another extravagant mystery in Moench & DeZuñiga’s ‘Hell-Reapers at the Heart of Paradise’…

Here a property tycoon’s abduction by an apparently crazed and definitely radioactive Viking pitches Savage and Co. into a lethal and terrifying treasure hunt for a galleon lost since 1504. The search expands to include a flotilla of missing ships vanished over centuries in the Arctic, and concludes spectacularly with civil war in a lost paradise packed with monsters…

More hilariously outdated macho ads bracket a ‘Ron Ely: the Man of Bronze!’ interview conducted by John Warner with photos by Michelle Wolfman…

Doc Savage Magazine #3 sees another Barr cover, frontispiece ‘Pin-up art’ by Rich Buckler & Klaus Janson and letters page ‘Mail of Bronze’ preface Moench, Buscema & DeZuñiga’s  titanic 45-page tale ‘The Inferno Scheme!’ When robot beasts plunder gems all across New York City, enigmatic, enticing Contessa De Chabrol points the finger at her brother, hoping Savage and his “brothers in arms” can keep the police out of the affair and save her deranged sibling from himself. With utterly smitten engineer Renny suitably distracted, they head upstate to Chabrol’s fortress to find the villain has mastered the science of lasers as well as robotics…

Well, almost. He still needs Renny to fine-tune his death ray cannon, but even as the captive’s comrades render a rescue mission, one last tragic betrayal awaits them…

Ape-shaped chemist/comedic relief Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair then stars in a solo tale when Monk! experiences ‘A Most Singular Writ of Habeas Corpus’ by Moench & Rico Rival. When his eternal rivalry with lawyer Ham (Brigadier General Theodore Marly Brooks) leads to the legal fashion plate losing his latest suit to the Monk’s pet pig, it results in everyone being abducted by a ruthless racketeer seeking to ace out the competition through clever chemistry…

More classic ads neatly segue into a stripped-down DSM #4 wherein Moench, Marie Severin & DeZuñiga detail how ‘Ghost-Pirates from the Beyond!’ imperil the world. It begins in February 1936 as assassins kill high-ranking police officers in Casablanca before targeting Clark Savage Jr.’s friend Charles Villiers in the Big Apple. Seemingly murdered by a ghostly sheik, the criminologist’s demise is forensically deconstructed by Doc, who brings his team to Morocco and scotches a scheme to garner millions in lost treasure and foment rebellion in the fractious French Protectorate…

Another ‘Mail of Bronze’ section and more ads (where did I put those X-ray Spex?) takes us #5 where ‘The Doc Savage Oath’ is illustrated by Neal Adams and more ‘Mail of Bronze’ sets up a colossal comics clash with ‘The Earth Wreckers!’. Here Moench & DeZuñiga see our planet in peril in summer 1933, as Doc Savage traverses the globe, raiding lairs on six continents to ruthlessly secure the components for a device intended to end humanity. This tale introduces Doc’s formidable cousin Pat Savage who is dragged into the impending calamity by shy, retiring whistle-blower Hiram Meeker. As usual, there’s more going on than first appears and the climactic battle against maniac super-extortionist Iron Mask beneath Loch Ness affords many shocks before order is finally restored…

Pin-up art’ of Doc and the gang by Marshall Rodgers bisects Bob Sampson’s comprehensive feature on ‘The Pulp Doc Savage!’ and David Anthony Kraft’s photo-feature ‘An Interview with: Mrs. Lester Dent’ before more daft ads herald Doc Savage Magazine #6.

Another Barr classic cover, supported by anonymous ‘Pin-up art’ (that looks like early Mike Zeck to me) and editorial ‘Onward, the Man of Bronze’ written by John Warner & limned by Keith Pollard springs directly into wild action into Moench & DeZuñiga’s main feature ‘The Sky-Stealers!’ as supposed Egyptian gods employ astounding super science to wipe out the mining town of Plainville, Utah. When Doc investigates, he leans that not only was the bank looted, but all the freshly-procured uranium is also gone…

As neighbouring town Union is also eradicated, lawyer Ham and archaeologist Johnny strike gold: uncovering maverick savant Professor Johnathan Wilde whose theories on “pyramid power” led to his ostracization and eventual disappearance. The hunt inexorably leads the squad to the New York Museum of Natural History, the pyramid of Cheops in Giza and repeated clashes with beast-headed supermen before deranged mastermind Horus and his armies finally fall to Doc’s strategies and sheer determination to punish the unjust…

Bob Sampson’s prose biography of ‘Renny’ is supported by illustrations from art prodigies Frank Cirocco & Brent Anderson, ‘Mail of Bronze’ and ‘Pin-up art’ by Ron Wilson (?).

Penultimate issue DSM #7 offers ‘Pin-up art’ by Ed Davis, before storming straight into a monster-mash masterpiece with Moench, Val Mayerik & DeZuñiga detailing how ‘The Mayan Mutations!’ unleash giant terrors in Peru. It’s June 1941 and America is still officially neutral whilst most of the world is at war, but when missionary Vesper Hope seeks the team’s aid on behalf of her native companion Myrrana, the quest takes them back to south America’s rain forests where white men have enslaved the indigenous people and created devils to destroy everything.

The champions don’t even leave New York before the terrors target them, too…

Ultimately, our heroes clean up the green hell and uncover the shocking truth of the monsters, but this time not all the damage can be fixed…

More ‘Pin-up art’ by Ed Davis leads to Sampson’s article on ‘Johnny’ before the historical heroic hijinks halt with issue #8. Tom Sutton’s ‘Pin-up art’ frontispiece precedes Warner’s farewell in ‘Editorializing on the Bronze Side in Two Parts’ before he, John Whitmore, Moench & Ernie Chan unleash ‘The Crimson Plague’.

When Doc leads the team to Acapulco in search of an old medical colleague, they uncover an uncanny monster leaving brain-addled victims and corpses. The octopoid horror follows them back north and haunts Brooklyn before Savage uncovers human agency behind the scarlet death “disappearing” scientists and threatening the world’s greatest cities. The imminent crisis demands the Fabulous Five split up, but when that ploy fails it falls to Doc to save the day and destroy the ghastly culprit behind the plot…

Wrapping up the issues – and this epic collection – is one last ‘Mail of Bronze’ feature, and more ‘Pin-up art’: Long Tom and friends’ courtesy of Davis and Savage by Bob Layton & Dick Giordano, all tantalising bolstered by a tantalising promo for a new collected serial (stay tuned for that later in this Savage anniversary year!)…

Bold, bombastic and truly beloved, these yarns have been published by Marvel, DC and Dynamite: truly timeless tales of the perfect and prototypical man of wonders. These are stories no action-loving, monster-hunting, crime-busting armchair hero can be without.

So, is that you?
® and © 2014 Conde Nast. Used under license.