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Marzi volume 1: Little Carp


By Marzena Sowa & Sylvain Savoia, translated by Anjali Singh/Mediatoon Licensing (Europe Comics)
No ISBN: digital edition only ASIN: B07417JCN3

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Lyrical, Lovely, Laughter-Laced and Laudable… 10/10

It’s getting close to everyone’s most anticipated and ultimately disappointing festival time, and this year more than any other, the lead-up has been peppered with misery, anxiety, actual tragedy and terror. However, whatever your spiritual or official seasonal leanings – and None at All now officially counts as a denomination in the UK – the season for miracles and wonders always sparks our communal hope for something different and better so I’ve unearthed this lost delight to foster a little hope and joy…

As you’re surely aware by now, our Continental cousins are exceeding adept at exploring humanity’s softer and more introspective sides through the medium of comics, and this first tome in a sequence detailing the life of a little Polish girl growing up in an era of huge social change is a masterclass in emotive, evocative, vibrantly funny and ruthlessly sensitive storytelling to delight our senses by quietly affirming that people everywhere are basically the same…

Originally released in France in 2005 as Marzi, tome 1. Petite carpe this enthralling and charming episodic collation was the first of seven cartoon memoires by writer Marzena Sowa and her work/life partner Sylvain Savoia. They had met when she came to Paris from Poland as an exchange student, and he – a successful cartoonist and graphic novelist – soon realised the potential of her anecdotes as she spoke of growing up in a Soviet satellite nation at the tail end of the Cold War…

Their published collaborations were a hit in Europe and the story was first translated into English in 2011 for DC/Vertigo. At that time, media hype concentrated on the political aspects of her background, but if you can when reading this version, try to ignore that, just as the creators do.

It’s a shaping element and plot point, like boarding at Hogwarts or growing up in the Teen Titans, but never what the stories are about. This a tale of childhood and taking happiness wherever you find it, not a kids adventure like Emil and the Detectives or a historical horror story like The Diary of Anne Frank…

Marzna Sowa was born in Stalowa Wola, Podkarpackia, Poland on April 8th 1979. She grew up mostly ordinary like all her friends and family, but after achieving maturity during some of the most eventful years of the 20th century, in 2001 changed her life path. She left the Jagiellonian University of Krakow for the University of Bordeaux to complete studies in Literature.

On meeting Sylvain Savoia, mutual attraction became a working partnership and the first autobiographical Marzi volume came in 2005. The last to date was released in 2017. Her other award-winning tales include N’embrassez pas qui voulez, (Don’t Kiss Who You Want, 2013, art by Sandrine Revel) and Tej nocy dzika paprotka, (with Berenika Kolomycka).

After further schooling to become a videographer, Sowa has moved into Cinema, writing screenplays and directing documentaries while continuing to script comics such as La Grande Métamorphose de Théo (2022, with Geoffrey Delinte) and La Petite Évasion (2022, with Dorothée de Monfreid).

Her first collaborator Sylvain Savoia was born in 1969 in Reims and initially studied at the Saint Luc Institute in Brussels. In 1993 he co-founded art workshop 510TTC and crafted his first comics – Reflets Perdus – from a script by Jean-David Morvan, before beginning their extended series Nomad. Later successes included Al’Togoat (2003), Les Esclaves oubliés de Tromelin and Henri Cartier-Bresson, Allemagne 1945, supplemented by poster making, advertising art and training manual illustration and design.

Since 2018 he has helmed educational series Le Fil de l’Histoire raconté par Ariane & Nino, and enjoyed further success with Sowa in Les esclaves oubliés de Tromelin and Petit Pays. In 2020 he was made a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters.

It begins as Christmas looms. ‘Communism doesn’t kill your appetite’ introduces 7-year-old Marzi, who’s nervously gearing up for the big day. It’s not about presents, but the fact that very soon every flat in the apartment block everybody she knows live in will have a fish in the bath. There are always shortages and long queues at the housing estate store, but somehow the market always has a carp for every customer to make the season traditional and perfect…

Marzi is smart and observant but perhaps thinks too much. She’s also – to her excitably loud and frequently angry mum’s consternation – a very picky eater, only barely aware of the effort her dad must make to get the fish. Of course the daughter is grateful, but also deeply concerned about once again sharing their toilet/bathroom with the creature until they eat her…

The situation sparks deep thoughts about eating animals. Marzi is luckier than most of her friends as her Aunt Niusia lives on a farm and the family always have access to extra food. However, the child’s visits are always fraught with unnoticed pragmatic brutality. Marzi has met cows, pigs, turkeys, chickens, cats, dogs and other creatures and fully understands why mum says you shouldn’t give animals names, but it doesn’t stop her trying to form a bond with the fish in the bath…

We learn more of her life on ‘The Social Landing’ where Marzi and the other kids in the block congregate. State controlled housing is short on amenities and variety (there are only two kinds of apartment available – small or bigger) and no play facilities, so the kids cluster around the elevator on her floor (the fifth) and play games vertically. Their favourite is messing with the lift buttons so that the carriage stops at every floor and they also like ringing doorbells and running away. Marzi is great at the latter but hampered in the former as she’s afraid of using the grim grey box and will always use the stairs if she can…

She has a strong bond with Andrzej, Magda, both Anias and especially feisty Monika, who always leads at everything, like that time Ania (1) and Andrzej’s mother pierced all their ears (except Andrzej and baby Magda!) and Monika’s mum gave them all their first earrings…

‘A carpet for life’ charmingly reveals the Poles’ utter obsession with ornate rugs and floor coverings and ‘Sun in winter’ details queuing culture and the Kupon (coupon system) dictating the dissemination of goods and foodstuffs, as seen through the eyes of the child stamping her freezing feet beside dad in the never-decreasing line for oranges: offering insights into what Marzi will and won’t eat and what her formidable mother will do to ensure fair shares for all…

Although she’s still young, Marzi spends a goodly part of her day ‘At School’. The cooks there understand her and the hot breakfasts are far more palatable. There are games and books and singing too and only thing she doesn’t like is how the little kids drool all over the toys…

It was always cold in the Soviet Union, and ‘Skowierszyn’ shares the joys of snow and sledding and visiting grandma who gets fashion magazines from cousin Janusz who works abroad. These are supposedly for Niusia – who is also a skilled seamstress – but become a beautiful inspiration for Marzi to stretch her mind and clothe her adored plastic doll…

More queuing – meat this time – is highlighted on ‘The Night of Waiting’ with dad and Uncle Zdzich making military style preparations to ensure success, after which Marzi develops deep shame and some potentially lifelong hang-ups when ordered to join the party to secure toilet paper in ‘Some poetry in rolls’…

Although dictatorial by diktat and “Communist” by command, Poland remained devoutly Catholic under Russian rule and we jump to the second most important event in the religious calendar for ‘A very wet Easter’ as Marzi and her folks head to rural Kamien to enjoy the festival with mum’s family. A hardworking, hard-drinking farming family dad cannot keep up with, their freer attitudes and lifestyle are a revelation to the child – as are the rather scary religious rituals they enjoy – but not as much as Marzi’s miraculous brush with death and subsequent notoriety after falling into a still frozen and exceedingly deep pond…

Dad works with Zdzich in the Huta Stalowa Wola, the city’s only factory, and that has its own perks, as seen in ‘All for one’ when every worker simultaneously takes the opportunity to buy a new fridge from the consignment just delivered, before his attempts at home entertainment give way to national fervour in ‘Our hero, the Pope!’ as Polish Pontiff John-Paul II makes his landmark visit. Of course the captivated adults never expected Marzi and her gang to recreate the event in their own inimitable irreverent manner, combining pomp and circumstance with a new block game involving the garbage chutes…

Although perhaps understandable, in the past many western observers have over-concentrated on the totalitarian regime (which is all but absent in this volume) and placed too heavy an emphasis on Soviet-spawned shortages, to the detriment of the real message here – that kids live in their own world and always try make the best of what they have.

Just imagine what British kids now will be writing about in 20 years when recalling their so-privileged childhoods of unnecessary privation, cold, and hunger in the soon-to-be nostalgia-ridden years of 2021 to 2024…

A skilfully shaped and gloriously enthralling paean to growing up in interesting times (and aren’t they all?), Little Carp is a celebration of independent thought: blending pranks in lifts and staircases, new fun with familial strangers and with doing the tedious stuff adults tell you to. Making fun where you can as your awareness deepens and a mature world is built by ever-expanding experience, and how we all grow up to be our parent in unbalanced doses of imitation and utter rejection…

The more observant amongst you might have noticed that my extended family is Polish and I have some actual experience of life under the Soviets back then. My many, many cousins experienced lives very like Marzi’s and endured the mixed Christmas delights of a big fish sharing your house before being reluctantly consumed, as well as all the other different but similar minor moments of growing up. If pushed, they might talk of shortages and restrictions, but they’d far rather discuss music or movies or football. And sex. They always want to know who’s doing who, but maybe that’s just my lot…

Everything else was just dull grown up stuff: boring, inescapable but sometimes delayable and just the way things were.

Marzi is definitely about independence and freedom, but it’s personal not national and inherently hopeful: the tale of a fish out of water learning to swim her own way. If you want polemical condemnation and supportive sympathy for your own prejudices, look somewhere else. Better yet, stick around and see how a delightful and unique individual lived her own best life…
© 2017 – DUPUIS – SOWA & SAVOIA. All rights reserved.

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Algorithmic Reality


By Damian Bradfield & David Sánchez (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-306-6 (PB) eISBN: 978-1-68112-307-3

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: You Better Watch Out, You Better Take Care… 9/10

In the modern world we are constantly watching and perpetually watched. We are society but society follows us everywhere even as it isolates us, and we cannot escape or avoid it. Are we unconscious or willing subjects of voyeuristic scrutiny or complacent participants in an increasingly intrusive overwatch culture that we really want but may not need?

This compelling graphic clarion cry wryly questions if that’s the randomly evolving progress of a wild system or somehow the gameplan of more sinister forces. Is unified technology, with all its benefits and instant gratifications the servant and builder of a truly integrated uniform and global society or just the newest means of a certain sort of predator (let’s call them “Tech-Barons”) making us all both cash cow and component consumer in a perpetually self-sustaining closed system – an internet battery farm where us chickens are both consumer AND product?

It’s clear that for many of us, our digital tools are now inescapable, essential, inimical and ultimately faithless and disloyal…

Comics are a nigh-universal, extremely powerful media that lend themselves to a host of topics and genres, but the area where it has always shone brightest is in its chimeric capacity for conveying complex arguments in a clear and compelling manner. Although daubing marks on a surface is possibly our oldest art form, the potential to ask questions, make stories and concisely communicate via that primal process remains infinitely adaptable to modern mores and as powerful as it ever was in exploring the unchanging basics of the human condition.

Narrative plus image – and the interactions such conjunctions can embrace – underpin all of our communal existence and form the primary source for how we view our distant forbears; especially as if employed by incisive, sensitive, uncompromising agents and interlocutors…

Here UK author, eminent digital pioneer, “tech exec” and lifelong comics fan Damien Bradfield posits in pictorial form some crucial and chilling questions about how and by whom, for what purpose and to what ends digital technologies have become such an inescapable and imperative force.

Casting a nervous yet knowing eye on the inept antisocial elites – Super-Rich mavericks spawned by manipulating Big Tech – Bradfield conjures up – via mordant, if not trenchant -incisiveness a sequence of ironically dystopian scenarios made chillingly clear and pervasively memorable by Spanish illustrator David Sánchez González.

Co-Founder of WeTransfer and its Chief Creative & Sustainability Officer, Damien Bradfield is also its Chief Strategy Officer, having created digital platform WePresent, co-founded digital design studio Present Plus, and formed illustration platform Kuvva. He owned an art gallery in Amsterdam and prior to all that worked for all the top advertising companies and Stella McCartney.

In 2019 he wrote The Trust Manifesto: What you Need to do to Create a Better Internet (discussing online privacy, trust and Big Data) and began by scoring a degree from the London School of Economics and Politics. You can regularly hear him on the Influence podcast…

Shaping thought and controlling information is also a deep concern for artist, designer and illustrator Sánchez: a solidly refined, intellectual draughtsman expert in restrained and understated imagery strongly influenced by Charles Burns, Daniel Clowes and Hergé. Among his most impressive and disturbing publications are Tú me has matado, No cambies nunca, La Muerte en los ojos and his illustrations for Robert Desnos’ El Destripador.

In Algorithmic Reality they combine to unleash sedately ironic speculations on where we are as a planet and where we’re going as a species in a range of wildly enchanting modern fables exploring our relationship with commerce, with particular emphasis on Short-termism, privacy, social media herd mentality, the tyranny of choice and information control. After all, isn’t Data the new fossil fuel: precious, invaluable, easily used, but so very dangerous when – not if – overexploited and misused?

Everyday tasks, major achievements, personal breakthrough and moments without merit jostle beside strange days and minor miracles in this tome, beginning with ‘Shoes’ as a visit to a store results in a sales assistant refusing to accept no sale as an outcome and doggedly stalking the failed purchaser, with confrontational encounters in the park, other stores and further inducements. By exploring how we’d react if a human vendor in the offline world behaved the same way as internet sales tools and bots do, the creators make a chilling point about pester power and the wisdom of making that first enquiry…

A search for ‘Insurance’ makes an equally distressing point about why a single simple sales transaction demands the surrender of so much apparently “necessary” extraneous personal detail just to secure a cheaper tariff after which ‘Shopping’ sees a one-off, first time buyer stumble into a sales emporium entirely patronised by shopping zombies programmed by repeated use of the system to make their needs accommodate the company’s demands…

A manifested nightmare for all collectors, ‘The Hoarder’ charts the inescapable downfall of an outlier and avowed social pervert who clings to physical objects rather than embracing digital experiences. His reluctance to abandon physical currency, books, vinyl records, polaroid photos and human interactions inevitably lead to Byron’s incarceration for “Data Avoidance” and “Health and Safety violations”…

Closing this packet of prophecy is ‘California Boomtowns Tour’, as an experience tourist takes the bus for a quick round up of all the Golden States’ boom-&-bust fads: accessing in person and a strictly curated abbreviated manner the desolate but so-picturesque remnants of gold mining, oil-drilling, Hollywood and pop music celebrity, computing and the property speculation that destroyed Silicon Valley, ending on the terrifying prospect of offworld expansion for the Next Big Things…

Being told that your personal electronics actually own you and incessantly work to make you targeted, monetizable fodder for attention-seeking, plutocratic weirdoes and faceless corporations is not new information, but seeing how masking that message works has never been more entertainingly handled than here. Bradfield and Sánchez deftly fudge and blur the line between offline and digital worlds: asking that readers look and think again.

Re-examining with wit and deadpan humour the addictive power of social media, enhanced and weaponised conformity, clandestine invasion of privacy and the appalling harmful potential of illicitly harvested, misused persona data, Algorithmic Reality demonstrates that there’s a such a thing as too much connectivity, and a little personal space is no bad thing…
Text and illustrations © 2021, 2022 Damian Bradfield and David Sánchez. All rights reserved. © 2022 NBM for the English translation.

Algorithmic Reality is scheduled for release on December 13th 2022 and is available for pre-order now. For more information and other great reads see http://www.nbmpub.com/. Most NBM books are available in digital formats…

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Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection volume 8: Man-Wolf at Midnight 1973-1975


By Gerry Conway Ross Andru, Gil Kane, John Romita, Paul Reinman & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-3350-0 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Astounding Arachnid Amazement… 9/10

Amazing Spider-Man was a comic book that matured with – or perhaps just slightly ahead of – its fan-base. This epic compendium of chronological webspinning wonderment sees the World’s Most Misunderstood Hero facing even greater and evermore complex challenges as he slowly recovers from the trauma of losing his true love and greatest enemy in the same horrific debacle…

Once original co-creator Stan Lee replaced himself with young author Gerry Conway, the scripts acquired a more contemporary tone (which of course often feels quite outdated from here in the 21st century): purportedly more in tune with the times whilst the emphatic use of soap opera subplots kept older readers glued to the series even when the bombastic battle sequences didn’t.

Moreover, as a sign of those times, a hint of cynical surrealism also began creeping in…

Thematically, there’s a decline in old-fashioned gangsterism and a growing dependence on outlandish villains. The long-established balance of costumed super-antagonists with thugs, hoods and mob-bosses was gradually tipping and a global resurgence in supernatural stories resulted in more monsters and uncanny happenings…

Nevertheless, the wallcrawler was still indisputably mainstream comics’ voice of youth and defined being a teen for readers of the 1970s: facing incredible hardships, fantastic foes and the most pedestrian and debilitating of frustrations.

For newcomers – or those just visiting thanks to the latest Spider-Man movies: Smart-but-alienated Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider during a school trip. Discovering strange superhuman abilities which he augmented with his own natural chemistry, physics and engineering genius, the kid did what any lonely, geeky nerd would do with such newfound prowess: he tried to cash in for girls, fame and money.

Making a costume to hide his identity in case he made a fool of himself, Parker became a minor media celebrity – and a criminally vainglorious one. To his eternal regret, when a thief fled past him one night he didn’t lift a finger to stop him, only to find when he returned home that his guardian uncle Ben Parker had been murdered.

Crazed and vengeful, Peter hunted the assailant who’d made his beloved Aunt May a widow and killed the only father he had ever known. He discovered to his horror that it was the self-same felon he had neglected to stop. His irresponsibility had resulted in the death of the man who raised him, and the traumatised boy swore to forevermore use his powers to help others.

Since that night, the Wondrous Wallcrawler tirelessly battled miscreants, monsters and madmen, with a fickle, ungrateful public usually baying for his blood even as he perpetually saves them.

Now the high school nerd has grown up and gone to college. Because of his guilt-fuelled double-life he struggles there too – even developing a stress ulcer – but finds abiding love with cop’s daughter Gwen Stacy… until she is murdered by the Green Goblin. Now Parker must pick up the pieces of his life…

This stunning compilation reprints Amazing Spider-Man #124-142 and Giant-Size Super-Heroes #1: collectively covering cover-dates September 1973 to March 1975, affirming an era of astounding introspective drama and captivating creativity.

As previously stated, at this time horror was on the rise and the trend permeated all aspects of Marvel continuity. In #124, J. Jonah Jameson’s astronaut son John was revealed to have picked up a strange gem during a unofficial moonwalk which later transformed him into a lupine beast bearing ‘The Mark of the Man-Wolf!’ by Conway, Gil Kane & John Romita.

Deranged and deadly, the hairy horror stalks his own fiancée Kristine Saunders as well as his scandal-obsessed, newspaper-publisher father, with a gravely-traumatised, fighting-mad Spider-Man reacting in a far more brutal manner than ever before…

The conclusion marked the official debut of the title’s next star penciller as Ross Andru joined Conway and Romita to delineate the end of the Man-Wolf saga in ‘Wolfhunt!’: offering a particularly grisly cure for the ethereally-altered astronaut…

In #126, a new subplot bloomed as a marketing firm hires the astounded and unbelieving arachnid to build a “Spider-Mobile” (thanks to a budding toy-merchandising deal Marvel was then negotiating) whilst an old and extremely inept enemy returns as ‘The Kangaroo Bounces Back!’ (drawn by Andru and inked by Jim Mooney).

Short of cash and desperate, Spidey ropes in best frenemy Johnny (Human Torch) Storm to help assemble the anticipated automobile, but is totally unprepared for his Australian attacker since bouncing bounder has endured a rapid and ultimately unwelcome power upgrade from a rogue – and extremely deranged – doctor named Jonas Harrow…

Meanwhile, in the apartment Peter still shares with Harry Osborn (son of the Green Goblin), his flatmate finally succumbs to the mental illness that has been sucking him down since the death of dear old Dad…

Peter’s frivolous party-loving friend Mary Jane Watson comes under the spotlight in #127 as ‘The Dark Wings of Death!’ – inked by Frank Giacoia & Dave Hunt – finds her targeted by a strangely familiar monster who believes she witnessed his last kill. The mystery concludes in ‘The Vulture Hangs High!’ wherein an incredible truth about the avian atavist is revealed. Moreover, portents of future catastrophe manifest as Parker’s biology tutor Professor Miles Warren warns that the scholarship student’s grades are slipping and his position is far from secure…

Conway, Andru, Giacoia & Hunt crafted a true landmark in comics history in Amazing Spider-Man #129 with ‘The Punisher Strikes Twice!’: introducing not only the renegade gunslinger but also nefarious manic mastermind The Jackal.

Although one of the industry’s biggest hits from the late 1980s onwards, compulsive vengeance-taker Frank Castle was always an unlikely and uncomfortable star for comic books. His methods are always excessively violent and usually permanent. It’s intriguing to note that unlike most heroes who debuted as villains (Black Widow, Hawkeye and Wolverine immediately come to mind) The Punisher actually became more immoral, anti-social and murderous, not less: the buying public simply shifted its communal perspective as the Punisher never toned down or cleaned up his act…

He was created by Conway, Romita Sr. and Andru; an understandably sanitised and muted response to popular prose anti-heroes like Don Pendleton’s Mack Bolan: the Executioner: the cutting edge of a bloody tide of fictive Viet Nam vets who all turned their training and talents to wiping out organised crime in the early 1970s.

In this short, sharp shocker the man with the skull on his chest is duped by his manipulative partner into hunting Spider-Man. Still a suspect in the death of Norman Osborn, the hero is easy to frame for the murder of the Punisher’s personal armourer and gunmaker…

A long-running mystery over Aunt May’s connection to Doctor Otto Octavius is at last addressed in #130 as ‘Betrayed!’ finds up-&-coming gang boss Hammerhead prodded and provoked by the Jackal, just as arch-rival Doctor Octopus resurfaces.

Distracted by his now-completed Spider-Mobile, the webslinger is slow to react …until he finally discovers why May Parker is so important to the villain, but by then she’s in the process of becoming Mrs. Otto Octavius…

Spider-Man is just about to bust up the wedding in ‘My Uncle… My Enemy?’ when Hammerhead beats him to it. As the three-way war escalates, the truth comes out. May has inexplicably inherited a desolate Canadian island which just happens to be teeming with uranium deposit, and its own Fast Breeder Atomic Reactor, which both Ock and Hammerhead want to secure as the means to becoming an independent nuclear power. When the rival rogues furiously clash, it’s all Peter can do to get May out before the entire place becomes an atomic inferno…

Illustrated by John Romita Sr., Paul Reinman & Tony Mortellaro, fresh moody mystery welcomes the weary Spider-Man back to New York after saving Aunt May from becoming a collateral casualty of atomic armageddon as he stumbles into ‘The Master Plan of the Molten Man!’ It begins when old school flame Liz Allen resurfaces needing help. Peter has no idea she is secretly trying to help her criminal stepbrother…

As a super-strong metal-skinned bandit Mark Raxton was only a minor inconvenience to the wallcrawler, but now his chemically induced condition has worsened and he is swiftly turning into an incandescent human fireball. However, by the time ‘The Molten Man Breaks Out!’ in #133 – illustrated by new regular creative team Andru and inkers Giacoia & Hunt – there’s nothing the hero can do but fight until one of them is dead…

Slightly adrift of publishing chronology, next comes a classic monster action yarn from Giant-Size Super-Heroes #1. With the monster boom in full swing, Marvel during this period flooded newsstands with horror-themed heroes and antiheroes and cannily teamed two of the Amazing Arachnid’s eeriest enemies in a double-length epic as ‘Man-Wolf at Midnight!’ – by Conway, Kane & Mike Esposito – finds John Jameson again gripped by murderous moon-madness. This time, however, the tormented former astronaut has been enthralled by Living Vampire Morbius and used to help that bloodsucker secure a possible cure for his own appalling condition in ‘When Strikes the Vampire!’

That dynamic dust-up led directly into a flurry of over-sized Giant-Size Spider-Man editions, but as none of them are included in this volume we return to Amazing Spider-Man #134 (July 1974) wherein the webspinner again crosses paths with The Punisher after a South American bandit – trained to be his oppressive regime’s Captain America before going freelance – attempts to pirate, pillage and ransom a Manhattan tour boat in ‘Danger is a Man Named… Tarantula!’ (Conway, Andru, Giacoia & Hunt).

Once again unwilling allies, the ethically-estranged duo dutifully dismantle the villain’s larcenous schemes leading to a ‘Shoot-Out in Central Park!’ but the real danger is building elsewhere as Parker’s roommate Harry Osborn accepts at last the infamous inheritance of his devilish, recently departed dad…

The compelling, long-brewing clash of former friends kicks off with completely crazy Harry attempting to blow up Peter and Mary Jane in ‘The Green Goblin Lives Again!’…

Privy to his best friend’s secrets, the maniac then targets all Parker’s loved ones, precipitating a desperate, deadly duel as ‘The Green Goblin Strikes!’ resulting in doom, destruction, shocking revelations and another tragedy for Peter to feel forever responsible for…

‘Madness Means… the Mindworm!’ finds a still-reeling Parker evicted from his apartment and relocating downmarket to Queens, just in time to encounter a macabre psychic parasite feeding off the denizens of the district.

Issue #139 then introduces a bludgeoning brute with a grudge against J. Jonah Jameson on the ‘Day of the Grizzly!’ When Spidey intervenes, he is soundly thrashed and handed over to the costumed crazy’s silent partner the Jackal who melodramatically reveals he knows the hero’s true identity…

Even though Peter escapes his diabolical trap in ‘And One Will Fall!’ the major maniac flees and remains at large…

A long-running comedy thread ends as the ridiculous Spider-Mobile ends up in the river, but the wallcrawler barely has time to care as an apparently dead enemy returns in #141’s ‘The Man’s Name Appears to be… Mysterio!’ Despite aggressively escalating psychological assaults and our hero questioning his own sanity, the mystery is smartly resolved in ‘Dead Man’s Bluff!’, wrapping up this transitional period in the life of Peter Parker and setting the scene for another shocking epic, life-changing encounter next time…

These narrative delights are supplemented by Romita’s cover, frontispiece, contents page and back cover from the 1974 debut tabloid edition Marvel Treasury Edition #1: The Spectacular Spider-Man as well as a faux Daily Bugle feature by Conway & Marie Severin; plus House ads; Kane page and cover layouts; the original Punisher design sketch by Romita and original art covers and interior pages by Kane, Romita &Andru.

Also on show are the Romita-rendered entry from Mighty Marvel Calendar for 1975, and a text & photo feature on the first live action Spider-Man film.

Blending cultural veracity with superb art, and making a dramatic virtue of the awkwardness, confusion and imputed powerlessness most of the readership experienced daily always resulted in an irresistibly intoxicating read, especially when delivered in addictive soap-styled instalments, but none of that would be relevant if Spider-Man’s stories weren’t so compellingly entertaining.

This action-packed collection relives many momentous periods in the wallcrawler’s astounding life and is one every Fights ‘n’ Tights fanatic must see…
© 2022 MARVEL.

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Blue Beetle Jaime Reyes Book One


By Keith Giffen, John Rogers, Cully Hamner, Duncan Rouleau, Rafael Albuquerque, Cynthia Martin, Kevin West, Phil Moy, Jack Purcell, Casey Jones & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-77951-506-3 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: All Action Superhero fun and Thrills… 9/10

As the most recent incarnation of the venerable Blue Beetle brand makes the jump from comic book limbo and kids’ animation reruns into live action movie madness, here’s a recent re-release of the first dozen of the superb 36-issue run that began in 2006: one of the most light-hearted and compelling iterations of the Golden Age stalwart and still a pure joy to behold…

The Blue Beetle first appeared in Mystery Men Comics #1, published by Fox Comics and cover-dated August 1939. The eponymous lead character was created by Charles Nicholas (AKA Charles Wojtkowski): a pulp-styled mystery man who was a born nomad. Over the years and crafted by a Who’s Who of extremely talented creators, he was also inexplicably popular and hard to kill: surviving the failure of numerous publishers before ending up as a Charlton Comics property in the mid-1950s.

After releasing a few issues sporadically, the company eventually shelved him until the superhero revival of the early 1960s when young Roy Thomas revised and revived the character for a 10-issue run (June 1964, February 1966) reinventing cop/adventurer Dan Garrett as an archaeologist, educator and scientist who gained super-powers whenever he activated a magic scarab with the trigger phrase “Kaji Da!”

Later that year, Steve Ditko (with scripter Gary Friedrich) utterly recreated the Blue Beetle. Ted Kord was an earnest and brilliant young researcher who had been a student and friend of Professor Garrett. When his mentor seemingly died in action, Kord trained himself to replace him: a purely human inventor/combat acrobat, bolstered by ingenious technology. This latter version joined DC’s pantheon during Crisis on Infinite Earths, earning his own series and a quirky immortality partnering with Booster Gold in Justice League International and beyond…

Collecting Blue Beetle (volume 7) #1-12 spanning May 2006 – April 2007, this saga follows the hallowed formula of a teenager suddenly gifted with great powers, and reveals how some heroes are remade, not born…

At the height of the Infinite Crisis (Link please, June 18 2008), El Paso high-schooler Jaime Reyes found a strange blue jewel shaped like a bug. That night, as he slept, it attached itself to his back, transforming him into a bizarre insectoid warrior. Almost immediately, he was swept up in the chaos, joining Batman and other heroes in a climactic space battle.

As this series opens on ‘Blue Monday’ (written by Keith Giffen & John Rogers and limned by Cully Hamner), he’s come home to El Paso, Texas; terrified for staying out late on a school night, and is suddenly attacked by Green Lantern Guy Gardner. The situation rapidly escalates as his sentient bug armour reacts instinctively and manically to the emerald energy of the foe…

As the fight builds in intensity, by way of flashbacks we see Jaime’s life before everything changed: meeting best buds and fellow high school inmates Paco and Brenda – who were with him when he found the scarab that messed up his life – and bratty little sister Milagro as well as his wonderfully cool parents…

The battle ends as soon as Gardner realises he’s fighting a child, but as when he flies off, the Lantern drops a shocking bombshell: whatever is empowering the kid and manifesting his talking, weapons-infested bug suit, it ISN’T magic…

The mystery intensifies in ‘Can’t Go Home Again’ as more recovered memories detail early clashes with local super-gangbangers The Posse and hint at big changes in Jaime. In the present, Reyes is slowly making his way back to his house, terrified over how his folks will react to his disappearance last night. It’s far worse than he could have imagined and a real shock when he discovers that he’s actually been missing for a year…

Illustrated by Cynthia Martin & Philip Moy ‘The Past is Another Country’ sees Jaime demonstrate his new powers to his gobsmacked family, only to be (initially) rejected and abandoned. Whilst the Reyes clans come to terms with their “dead” son resurrected as a bug monster, the stunned lad road tests his new powers and tracks down his old friends.

A lot has changed: Paco is now part of the Posse and those outcast teens are locked in a deadly war with the minions of local organised crime-boss La Dama… who just happens to be Brenda’s legal guardian Tia Amparo…

Cully Hamner returns in #4 as Giffen & Rogers detail how Jaime starts looking into previous Blue Beetles and owners of the scarab and becomes a ‘Person of Interest’ to cyber-hero Oracle/Barbara Gordon who tests him with a view to making him one of her Birds of Prey. That doesn’t end well and presages far worse as militaristic mystery man The Peacemaker hits town on the down-low, secretly seeking old comrade and associate “Blue”…

Delivered in two parts over #5 and 6, ‘Secrets’ is illustrated by Duncan Rouleau, Martin, Kevin West, Moy & Jack Purcell. It reveals how The Phantom Stranger arrives, also hoping to clear up the mystery of this new Blue Beetle. Seeking to ascertain the teen’s place in the hierarchy of “the New Age of Magic” is something many factions are working on, from The Posse to La Dama’s pet goon the Diviner. Chaos reigns as all the investigators converge and clash when a baby of great power is stolen and Jaime at last learns that sometimes you just have to step up and do the right thing…

Following a brutal confrontation with plenty of shocking revelations ‘Secrets Pt 1 of 2’ sees a sharp redefinition of allegiances and anew status quo that almost immediately founders when Peacemaker reveals what nobody seemed able to discern – the true nature of Jaime’s scarab…

John Rogers is sole scripter for BB #7 as ‘Brother’s Keeper’ offers a guest-star packed recap of Reyes’ career to date: filling in many blanks since the night the new Beetle helped save the world. Illustrated by Hamner & Casey Jones and with Giffen back on board, ‘Road Trip’ sees Jaime, Brenda and Peacemaker go looking for even more answers: beginning by consulting young cyber-geek Dan Garrett – a self-proclaimed expert on all previous Blue Beetles.

As the original hero’s granddaughter she also has a fair claim to being the rightful owner of the gem, but a potential squabble and their research is interrupted by the return of a monstrous hunchbacked maniac determined to destroy the “demonic” new hero.

Following that Roleau renders ‘Inside Man’, telling why Peacemaker has so-unwillingly involved himself in Jaime’s life just as Brenda finds herself in a world of trouble…

Living with her aunt – the magic-wielding, arch crime boss of El Paso – in a felonious clearing house for stolen super-technology and magical artifacts, it was only a matter of time before Brenda stumbled upon something really dangerous. Whisked to an far-distant world in ‘Should’ve Taken that Left Turn at Albuquerque…’ (with art from Hamner and Rafael Albuquerque!), her disappearance forces an uneasy truce between Jaime and La Dama so that the Beetle can rescue Brenda, consequently encountering a selection of New Gods and hungry aliens before successfully bringing her back in ‘The Guns of Forever’ (by Rogers & Albuquerque, and we end on a thematic cliffhanger with ‘Meet the New Boss’ as Beetle and Peacemaker investigate cattle mutilations, battle a giant bug monster and meet its owner – an extraterrestrial envoy from extragalactic trading empire The Reach. He also claims to be the creator of the scarab…

With a gallery of variant covers, sketches and character designs by Hamner, this is a welcome return for a great series: one of precious few comic books to combine action and adventure, with comedy and suspense perfectly leavened with fun and wit. Blue Beetle Jaime Reyes offers an innovative and wryly engaging saga impossible to resist, especially with the artistic endeavours of Hamner, Martin, Albuquerque, Rouleau and Jones making each page a visual treat. Even 17 years on, Blue Beetle remains a fresh and delightful joy, so why not bug out and Go Read This!
© 2006, 2007, 2022 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Pete & Pickles


By Berkeley Breathed (Philomel Books/Penguin Young Readers Group)
ISBN: 978-0-399250-82-8 (HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Because it Ain’t Seasonal Without Cartoon Critters… 10/10

Throughout the 1980s and for half of the 1990s, Berke Breathed dominated the newspaper strip scene with agonisingly funny, edgy-yet-surreal political fantasy Bloom County and, latterly, Sunday-only spin-off Outland. They are all available digitally – so don’t wait for my reviews, just get them now!

At the top of his game and swamped with awards like Pulitzers, Breathed retired to concentrate on books for kids, crafting whimsical wonders like Red Ranger Came Calling, Mars Needs Moms! and Flawed Dogs: The Year End Leftovers at the Piddleton “Last-Chance” Dog Pound (and sequel Flawed Dogs: The Shocking Raid on Westminster), which all rank among the best America has ever produced.

Get them too.

Breathed’s first foray into the field was 1991’s A Wish for Wings That Work: a Christmas parable featuring his signature character, and the most charmingly human one. Between 2003 and 2008, Breathed revived Opus as a Sunday strip, before eventually capitulating to his career-long antipathy for the manic deadline pressures of newspaper production and often-insane, convoluted contradictions of editorial censorship.

It seemed his ludicrous yet appealing cast of misfits – all skilled and deadly exponents of irony and common sense residing in the heartland of American conservatism – were gone for good, until the internet provided a platform for Breathed to resume his role as a gadfly commentator on his own terms.

Since 2015, Bloom County has mocked, exposed and shamed capitalism, celebrities, consumerism, popular culture, politicians, religious leaders and people who act like idiots. Donald Trump figures prominently and often, but that might just be coincidence…

These later efforts, unconstrained by syndicate pressures to not offend advertisers, are also available as book collections. You’ll want those too, and be delighted to learn that all Breathed’s Bloom County work is also available in digital formats – fully annotated to address the history gap, if you didn’t live through events such as Iran-Gate, Live-Aid, Star Wars (both cinematic and military versions), assorted cults, televangelists experiencing less than divine retribution and sundry other tea-cup storms that contributed to all us Baby Boomers beings so obnoxious, rude and defensive…

Not quite as renowned, but every inch as crucial to your enjoyment, is the lost gem on display today: a paean to the power of friendship, all wrapped up in a children’s book about an odd couple thrown together by fate and necessity. And outré noses…

As previously stated, after the all-too-brief, glittering outing as a syndicated strip cartoonist and socio-political commentator (so often the very same hallowed function) Breathed left strips to create children’s picture books.

He lost none of his perception, wit or imagination, and actually got better as an artist. Even so, he never quite abandoned his entrancing cast of characters and always maintained the gently excoriating, crusading passion and inherent bittersweet invective which underscored those earlier narratives.

Moreover, he couldn’t ignore that morally uplifting component of his work that so upset hypocrites, liars, greedy people and others who let us all down while carping on about being unfairly judged and how we don’t really understand complex issues. Trust me, we – and Breathed – understand perfectly…

This crushingly captivating cartoon catechism ruminates on the cost and worth of comradely fraternity.

Pete is a pig: practical, predictable and not in any way a perturbation to normal pedestrian life. He was a pig who didn’t like fuss or surprises and lived alone until the night of the big storm. Aroused from his usual rain-induced nightmare of drowning, Pete gradually became aware that something had broken into his otherwise empty but extremely secure house…

Suddenly accosted, he is all but smothered in the capacious and so strong snoot of escaped circus elephant Pickles, who begs him to shelter her. Of course, pragmatic Pete happily hands her over the moment the clowns hunting her turn up, but can’t forget how she’d smiled at him whilst being dragged away or that she’s left him a posy of dandelions…

The event utterly disrupts his equilibrium and – despite himself – Pete eventually attends the circus. What he sees moves him so greatly that he abandons everything he ever believed and breaks her out.

Hiding her in his house, he soon finds his staid, stolid and secure life shattered by odd adventures and intoxicating fantasies, but no matter how nice it feels, it’s far more than his practical nature can abide. However, the subsequent confrontation jumps quickly from angry words to life-threatening peril when the plumbing breaks and they’re both trapped in a rapidly-filling watery deathtrap…

Combining the potent desolate imagery of Grant Wood’s American Gothic with the paintings of Edward Hopper: channelling the hidden comedic potential of the isolated rural heartland with manic, surreal whimsy in hyper-real fully rendered paintings acting in concert with powerfully simplified line drawings, Pete & Pickles explores loneliness, reticence, compromise and the hunger for companionship in a charming but potent fable. This astounding yarn was inspired by the drawing and razor-sharp perspicacity of Breathed’s (then 5-year-old) daughter Sophie, and can teach us all a thing or two about understanding ourselves and just getting along…

This is a book to trigger personal reflection, audit consciences and promote more honest behaviour, but it will make grown citizens howl and children sit up and pay attention. It’s also wickedly funny and deliciously sad. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll think hard about what you want and who you’d like to share it with…
© 2008 Berkeley Breathed. All rights reserved.

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Billy’s Boots Book 1: The Legacy of ‘Dead-shot’ Keen


By Fred Baker, Colin Page, Mike Western, Bill Lacey, Tom Kerr & various (Rebellion Studios)
ISBN: 978-1-78108-671-1 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Classic Comics Fun and Games… 9/10

British kids have always been utterly besotted with sports and comics have continually fed and fuelled their addiction. Even in the days when children’s only exclusive “entertainment” was primarily prose “Story Papers”, tales of playing field rivals, earnest competition, glorious accomplishments, fair play and sporting prodigies dominated. As comic strips took tight hold of kid’s lives during WWII and after, generations of boys grew up wanting to be Wilson, Alf Tupper, His Sporting Lordship, Skid Solo or Roy of the Rovers.

As the 1950s unfolded, football became the undisputed leader of sporting strips: a peculiarly wide field that had found room for speedway, cricket, motor racing, rugby, boxing, wrestling, athletics and fishing among many, many others. In September 1954, Amalgamated Press launched a companion comic to anthological market leader Lion. Edited by Derek Birnage – until 1963, when Barrie Tomlinson took over – Tiger – The Sport and Adventure Picture Story Weekly was cover-dated 11th September and out in time for the new football season. Primarily sports-themed for its entire run (1573 issues until 1985) it merged with or absorbed Champion (1955), Comet (1959), Hurricane (1965), Jag (1969), Scorcher (1974) and Speed (1980) before itself being subsumed by the relaunched Eagle in April 1985.

Among its most memorable treasures was Skid Solo, Johnny Cougar, Rod and Line, Hot Shot Hamish, Nipper, Football Family Robinson, Billy’s Boots and Roy of the Rovers…

As the 1960s segued into a new decade, across the United Kingdom, football was king in comics: everything from straight sporting drama strips to wild comedies with strange teams and odd motivations, and even supernaturally-tinged strips like Raven on the Wing…

Shoot launched in 1969, a junior, comics-heavy version of adult magazine Goal (which it eventually absorbed!) and Striker in January 1970. Its lead strip would graduate to The Sun newspaper.

Scorcher also kicked off on January 10th 1970, with an all football roster of photo-features sports journalism dedicated to the beautiful game and strips including Kangaroo Kid, Royal’s Rangers, Bobby of the Blues, Sub (He’s always on the sidelines!), Paxton’s Powerhouse, Lags Eleven, Jack of United, Jimmy of City, Hotshot Hamish and Nipper, but the breakout feature proved to be a dramatic reimagining of a comedy strip from Tiger: Billy’s Boots…

Scorcher became Scorcher and Score after 77 issues (merging with Score ‘n’ Roar in early July 1971) and finally called “time” with the October 5th 1974 issue – a further 171 outings. Its favourite features were ultimately absorbed into Tiger in 1980, but Annuals and Summer Specials continued to appear until 1984.

The stories here originally played in Scorcher from 10th January 1970 to 9th January 1970. The strip had taken its name from a comedic feature by Frank Purcell that ran in Tiger from 1961-1963. For a fresh new era, it was overhauled by 50-year veteran scripter Fred Baker (Martin’s Marvellous Mini, Skid Kids, Tommy’s Troubles, Hot-Shot Hamish, and much more in titles including Tiger, Buster, Chips, Radio Fun, Film Fun, Valentine and Roy of the Rovers).

He wrote the feature for most of its first 20 years run which was initially illuminated – in this volume at least – by Colin Page (Adam Eterno, Paddy Payne), Bill Lacey (Rick Random, Super Detective Library, Cowboy Comics Library, Mickey Mouse Weekly, Mytek the Mighty, Rat Pack), Mike Western (Lucky Logan, Biggles, No Hiding Place, The Wild Wonders, The Leopard from Lime Street, Darkie’s Mob, HMS Nightshade, Roy of the Rovers) and Tom Kerr (Little Lew, Fay, Monty Carstairs, Kip Kerrigan, Kelly’s Eye, Captain Hurricane, The Steel Claw, Charlie Peace, Kraken, Black Axe, Boy Bandit, Tara King/The Avengers, Peter the Cat, Clarks Commandos et al).

Billy’s Boots was initially rendered in 2-page, full colour instalments and survived Scorcher’s merger with Tiger in 1974, and amalgamation with Eagle in 1985. A year later Billy migrated to Roy of The Rovers magazine offering new adventures until 1990. Even then, the lad kept kicking, appearing in reprints, Annuals and Best of Roy of the Rovers Monthly, Striker and Total Football magazine into the 21st century.

He’s also an international star, having been translated into Finnish, Swedish, Icelandic, Dutch, Bengali, Turkish and more…

In October 1971, John Gillatt took over the art for a 16-year run which truly defined the strip in readers’ eyes and minds, but that’s a treat for another volume…

Here however, in interlinked serials we meet 12-year-old Billy Dane who is an avid – but rubbish – footballer. His earnest desire is simply to play the game but he’s so bad nobody will let him join even a playground kickabout…

An orphan living with his grandmother, Billy’s life changes forever when he dutifully cleans out her attic and finds a battered old pair of football boots. They were a souvenir his grandad had picked up, and had been used by sporting legend Charles “Dead-Shot” Keene. When Billy wistfully dons them and starts mucking about in the backyard, something miraculous occurs.

Suddenly, he can kick with the force and accuracy of an adult professional and later testing shows that the fabulous footwear sends him subconscious messages, enabling to read a field and almost predict the best place to be in any game situation…

Now bursting with confidence and hungry to play, he rapidly moves from friendly games to school caps, county matches and even international fixtures, with a heaping helping of drama accruing from his eagerness frequently leading him to play for rivals and opposing teams…sometimes on the same day…

Further confusions and concerns arise as he researches the life of Dead-Shot and realises that he’s often reliving actual events that affected the star and shaped his astounding career. The phenomenon doesn’t let up even after Billy finally meets and befriends his idol…

Of course, as this is a drama the most challenging problem Billy constantly faces is losing, mislaying, being deprived of and recovering the ratty, tatty, far-out-of-fashion old boots: prompting many manic moments where the plucky kid must humiliatingly go on without the miracle-making fantastic footwear, but always the lad perseveres and overcomes…

It’s also not as if he doesn’t have other problems too. At one stage he’s forced to move across the country, leaving all his friends: encountering school bullies, and teachers and trainers who think he’s troubled…

After its initial set-up the nature of the stories become rather formulaic, with Billy always seeking to be the best he could: trying to wean himself off ghostly footgear and develop innate natural skills. This was usually a huge disappointment as he always failed unless he was wearing the boots of his hero. Thankfully, the astounding illustration always makes the stories feel fresh and the ongoing mystery of how and why the boots work keeps the tension up…

Such narrative repetition was not deemed a problem at the time, since editors held the firm conviction that readers had a definite shelf-life and would quickly move on to better things… like Chaucer, Len Deighton, or the back pages of The Sun or Daily Mirror…

This astoundingly absorbing classic is another perfect example of purely British comics sensibilities: passionate, idealistic and desperately earnest as it follows the path of a working class hero navigating a treacherous path to glory or dismal defeat. This is a welcome reintroduction: inspirational, warm, beautifully rendered and absolutely unforgettable. Another treasure-trove from Rebellion’s ever-expanding Treasury of British Comics, this tale span generations and demands to be in every family bookcase.
© 1970, 1971, & 2020 Rebellion Publishing IP Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

A thankful tip of the fact hat to footy publications site Soccerbilia – for some of the background recycled here.

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Moomin volume 6: The Complete Lars Jansson Comic Strip


By Lars Jansson (Drawn & Quarterly)
ISBN: 978-1-77046-042-3 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-77046-553-4

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Enchanting Entertainment… 9/10

Tove Jansson was one of the greatest literary innovators and narrative pioneers of the 20th century: equally adept at shaping words and images to create worlds of wonder. She was especially expressive with basic components like pen and ink, manipulating slim economical lines and patterns to realise sublime realms of fascination, whilst her dexterity made simple forms into incredibly expressive and potent symbols and as this collection shows, so was her brother…

Tove Marika Jansson was born into an artistic, intellectual and rather bohemian Swedish family in Helsinki, Finland on August 9th 1914. Father Viktor was a sculptor and mother Signe Hammarsten-Jansson a successful illustrator, graphic designer and commercial artist. Tove’s brothers Lars – AKA “Lasse” – and Per Olov became – respectively – an author/cartoonist and art photographer. The family and its close intellectual, eccentric circle of friends seems to have been cast rather than born, with a witty play or challenging sitcom as the piece they were all destined to inhabit.

After extensive and intensive study (from 1930-1938 at the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, Stockholm, the Graphic School of the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts and L’Ecole d’Adrien Holy and L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris), Tove became a successful exhibiting artist through the troubled period of the Second World War.

Brilliantly creative across many fields, she published the first fantastic Moomins adventure in 1945. Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen (The Little Trolls and the Great Flood or latterly and more euphoniously The Moomins and the Great Flood) was a whimsical epic of gentle, inclusive, accepting, understanding, bohemian misfit trolls and their strange friends…

A youthful over-achiever, from 1930-1953 Tove had worked as an illustrator and cartoonist for the Swedish satirical magazine Garm: achieving some measure of notoriety with an infamous political sketch of Hitler in nappies that lampooned the Appeasement policies of European leaders in the build-up to WWII. She was also an in-demand illustrator for many magazines and children’s books, and had started selling comic strips as early as 1929.

Moomintroll was her signature character. Literally.

The lumpy, gently adventurous big-eyed romantic goof began life as a spindly sigil next to her name in her political works. She called him “Snork” and claimed she had designed him in a fit of pique as a child – the ugliest thing a precocious little girl could imagine – as a response to losing an argument with her brother about Immanuel Kant.

The term “Moomin” came from her maternal uncle Einar Hammarsten who attempted to stop her pilfering food when she visited, warning her that a Moomintroll guarded the kitchen, creeping up on trespassers and breathing cold air down their necks. Snork/Moomin filled out, became timidly nicer – if a little clingy and insecure – acting as a placid therapy-tool to counteract the grimness of the post-war world.

The Moomins and the Great Flood didn’t make much of an initial impact but Jansson persisted, probably as much for her own edification as any other reason, and in 1946 second book Kometjakten (Comet in Moominland) was published. Many commentators have reckoned the terrifying tale a skilfully compelling allegory of Nuclear Armageddon. You should read it now… while you still can…

When it and third illustrated novel Trollkarlens hatt (1948, Finn Family Moomintroll or occasionally The Happy Moomins) were translated into English in 1952 to great acclaim, it prompted British publishing giant Associated Press to commission a newspaper strip about her seductively sweet and sensibly surreal creations.

Jansson had no misgivings or prejudices about strip cartoons and had already adapted Comet in Moominland for Swedish/Finnish paper Ny Tid. Mumintrollet och jordens undergäng – Moomintrolls and the End of the World – was a popular feature so Jansson readily accepted the chance to extend her eclectic family across the world. In 1953, The London Evening News began the first of 21 Moomin strip sagas which promptly captivated readers of all ages. Jansson’s involvement in the cartoon feature ended in 1959, a casualty of its own success and a punishing publication schedule. So great was the strain that towards the end she recruited brother Lars to help. He took over, continuing the feature until its end in 1975. His tenure as sole creator officially starts here…

Liberated from the strip’s pressures, Tove returned to painting, writing and other creative pursuits: generating plays, murals, public art, stage designs, costumes for dramas and ballets, a Moomin opera and 9 more Moomin-related picture-books and novels, as well as 13 books and short-story collections strictly for grown-ups.

Tove Jansson died on June 27th 2001. Her awards are too numerous to mention, but just think: how many modern artists get their faces on the national currency?

Lars Fredrik Jansson (October 8th 1926 – July 31st 2000) was just as amazing as his sister. Born into that astounding clan twelve years after Tove, at 16 he started writing – and selling – his novels (nine in total). He also taught himself English because there weren’t enough Swedish-language translations of books available for his voracious reading appetite.

In 1956, he began co-scripting the Moomin newspaper strip at his sister’s request: injecting his own brand of witty whimsicality to ‘Moomin Goes Wild West’. He had been Tove’s translator from the start, seamlessly converting her Swedish text into English. When her contract with The London Evening News expired in 1959, Lars Jansson officially took over the feature, having spent the interim period learning to draw and perfectly mimic his sister’s cartooning style. He had done so in secret, with the assistance and tutelage of their mother Signe Hammarsten-Jansson, and from 1961 to the strip’s end in 1974 was sole steersman of the newspaper iteration of trollish tails.

Lasse was also a man of many parts: his other careers including writer, translator, aerial photographer and professional gold miner. He was the basis and model for cool kid Snufkin…

Lars’ Moomins was subtly sharper than his sister’s version and he was far more in tune with the quirky British sense of humour, but his whimsy and wry sense of wonder was every bit as compelling. In 1990, long after the original series, he began a new career, working with Dennis Livson (designer of Finland’s acclaimed theme park Moomin World) as producers of Japanese anime series The Moomins and – in 1993 with daughter Sophia Jansson – on new Moomin strips…

Moomintrolls are easy-going free spirits: modern bohemians untroubled by hidebound domestic mores and most societal pressures. Moominmama is warm, kindly tolerant and capable but perhaps overly concerned with propriety and appearances whilst devoted husband Moominpappa spends most of his time trying to rekindle his adventurous youth or dreaming of fantastic journeys.

Their son Moomin is a meek, dreamy boy with confusing ambitions. He adores their permanent houseguest the Snorkmaiden – although that impressionable, flighty gamin prefers to play things slowly whilst waiting for somebody potentially better…

The 6th oversized (310 x 221 mm) monochrome hardback compilation gathers serial strip sagas #22-25 and is a particular favourite, and opens with Lars firmly in charge and puckishly re-exploring human frailties and foibles via a beloved old plot after a seaside excursion with the Snorkmaiden unearths ‘Moomin’s Lamp’…

Of course, the ancient artefact comes with its own rather lazy and inept genie, and when the glamour-crazed Snorkmaiden foolishly wishes for a diamond diadem despite her beau’s best advice, it triggers a bold theft and a great deal of difficulties with the local constabulary…

Soon, fugitives from the law and justice – definitely two different things here – the young malefactors have compromised the honour of overprotective Moominpapa and gone off to hide in the leafy wooded “Badlands” of Moomin Valley, enduring privation on the run until scurrilous reprobate Stinky “nobly” takes the offending lamp off their hands…

The perils of unrelenting progress and growth then manifest in ‘Moomin and the Railway’ when a bunch of burly but affable and unflappable workmen begin laying railroad tracks through the unspoiled beauty of Moomin Valley. Enraged and outraged, our young hero begins a campaign of resistance that includes persuasion, intimidation and even sabotage. Sadly, many of his initial allies turn at the prospect of increased ease, newfound affluence and plain old indifference, before incorrigible rebel Snufkin takes a hand and salvation suddenly comes in a strange form with the valley saved yet changed forever…

Contemporary Cold War concerns are then lampooned when the patriarch meets up with old school chum in ‘Moominpapa and the Spies’. Lost in a nostalgic haze with old crony Wimsy and hankering to recapture the wild and free, glory days of youth, the happy fantasist embarks on a misguided spree bound to disappoint and stumbles into an actual spy plot involving the worst operatives in the world. Ultimately Moominpapa is shanghaied and lost at sea before regaining his equilibrium and heading home again…

The weird wonderments conclude for now with another wry retort to fads and fashions as ‘Moomin and the Circus’ sees the Finn Family of trolls forced into vegetarianism when animal conservation captivates the entire valley. When Moominpapa is – most reluctantly – elected leader of the local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, he resolves to lead by example, and his edicts quickly show up the hypocrisy of the fashion-conscious elite who pressganged him. Everybody gets an even more urgent chance to rethink their priorities and intentions after the SPCA forces the closure of a travelling show and then has to deal with the consequences: homing the Lions, horses, elephant, ostrich, monkeys, parrots, and sea-lions who were only really happy in show biz…

This compilation closes with ‘Lars Jansson: Roll Up Your Sleeves and Get to Work’ by family biographer Juhani Tolvanen, extolling his many worthy attributes…

These are truly magical tales for the young, laced with the devastating observation and razor-sharp mature wit which enhances and elevates only the greatest kids’ stories into classics of literature. These volumes – both Tove and Lars’ – are an international treasure trove no fan of the medium – or carbon-based lifeform with even a hint of heart and soul – can afford to be without.
© 2011 Solo/Bulls. “Lars Jansson: Roll Up Your Sleeves and Get to Work” © 2011 Juhani Tolvanen. All rights reserved.

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Avengers Epic Collection volume 8: Kang War 1974-1976


By Steve Englehart, Roy Thomas, Tony Isabella, Sal Buscema, Dave Cockrum, George Tuska, Don Heck, George Pérez, Keith Pollard, Joe Staton & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-3352-4 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Amazement Assembled!… 9/10

One of the most momentous events in comics (and now, film) history came in the middle of 1963 when a disparate gang of heroic individuals banded together to combat an apparently out of control Incredible Hulk.

The Avengers combined most of the company’s fledgling superhero line in one bright, shiny and highly commercial package. Over intervening decades the roster has never stopped changing, and now almost every character in the Marvel multiverse has at some time numbered amongst their colourful ranks…

After instigators Stan Lee & Jack Kirby moved on, the team prospered under the guidance of Roy Thomas who grew into one of the industry’s most impressive writers, directing the World’s Mightiest Heroes through adventures ranging from sublimely poetic to staggeringly epic. He then handed over the scripting to a young writer who carried the team to even greater heights…

This stunning compilation assembles Avengers #129-149 and Avengers  Giant-Size #2-4: collectively covering November 1974 to July 1976, to conclude an era of cosmic catastrophe and cataclysmically captivating creativity.

The Avengers have always proved that putting all one’s star eggs in a single basket pays off big-time: even when all Marvel’s classic all-stars such as Thor, Captain America and Iron Man were absent, it merely allowed the team’s lesser lights to shine more brightly. Of course, as in this volume, the founding stars were regularly featured due to the rotating, open door policy which meant that every issue included somebody’s fave-rave. The boldly grand-scaled stories and artwork are no hindrance either.

It all begins as Englehart explores the outer limits of Marvel history and cosmic geography to construct an epic revelation of universal structure, the true beginnings of Marvel time and the formative years of some of the most intriguing characters in comics…

The drama opens with Avengers #129 and ‘Bid Tomorrow Goodbye!’ (illustrated by Sal Buscema & Joe Staton) as Kang the Conqueror abruptly appears, determined to possess the legendary female figure he calls “the Celestial Madonna.”

Apparently, this anonymous being will birth the saviour of the universe, but since no records survive disclosing which of the three women in Avengers Mansion at that crucial moment – mutant sorcery student Scarlet Witch, martial artist Mantis and aged witch Agatha Harkness – she actually is, the time-reaver is resolved to capture all three and forcibly make himself the inevitable father of the child…

This time, not even the assembled Avengers can stop him and, after crushing and enslaving them, Kang makes off with his hostages, leaving only the recently-injured and swiftly declining Swordsman free to contest him…

The tale continues in Giant-Size Avengers #2, with ‘A Blast from the Past!’ (limned by Dave Cockrum) as reluctant returnee Hawkeye rushes to the fallen team’s rescue, uniting with old adversary/mentor Swordsman and enigmatic entity Rama-Tut – who eventually reveals himself as Kang’s reformed future self…

Against all odds, the merely mortal heroes manage to liberate the enslaved Avengers and rout the unrepentant Kang – but only at the cost of Swordsman’s life…

Avengers #130 posed ‘The Reality Problem!’ (with art from Sal B & Staton), depicting how heartbroken and much-chastened Mantis joins the team in Vietnam to investigate her mysteriously clouded past, only to be drawn into pointless combat with Soviet/Chinese Communist exiles and former Avenger foes Titanium Man, Radioactive Man and Crimson Dynamo …thanks to the devious manipulations of petty sneak thief The Slasher…

Brief but heated battle concluded, the origin trail leads to ‘A Quiet Half-Hour in Saigon!’ during which the American adventurers are again attacked by Kang, who traps them in Limbo and unleashes against them a macabre Legion of the Unliving comprising mind-controlled, currently “dead” heroes plucked from the corridors of history…

With yet another chronal villain Immortus added to the mix, ‘Kang War II’ sees resurrected heroes and villains Wonder Man, 1940’s android Human Torch, the Monster of Frankenstein, martial arts assassin Midnight, the actually spectral Flying Dutchman and the first Baron Zemo decimate the team. Moreover, the trauma and tragedy are further exacerbated as Mantis keeps seeing the ghost of her dead lover…

This absorbing thriller by Englehart, Roy Thomas, Sal Buscema & Staton segues inexorably into Giant-Size Avengers #3’s ‘…What Time Hath Put Asunder!’ Illustrated by Cockrum & Joe Giella, it sees Earth’s Mightiest Heroes pulling victory from the ashes of defeat and receiving a unique gift from one of the assembled Masters of Time…

Avengers #133 voyages to ‘Yesterday and Beyond…’ (by Englehart, Sal B & Staton) as the shocked heroes accompany Mantis to the beginnings of recorded Galactic history to unravel of her true past, whilst The Vision is separately dispatched to glimpse his own obscure and complex origins: a double quest encompassing both the Kree and Skrull empires, the previously defeated monstrous Star-Stalker, long-deceased Priests of Pama, Thanos and telepathic Titan Moondragon, as well as a goodly portion of classic superhero history in ‘The Times That Bind!’ before #135 reveals how ‘The Torch is Passed!’ (limned by George Tuska & Frank Chiaramonte), before bringing all the disparate elements together in Giant-Size Avengers #4.

‘…Let All Men Bring Together’ (art by Don Heck & John Tartaglione) brings a satisfactory conclusion to the long-standing. pitfall-plagued romance between the Scarlet Witch and Vision and details another, far more cosmic union with a brace of weddings and the ultimate ascension of the Celestial Madonna – despite demonic extra-dimensional despot Dormammu attempting to despoil the matrimonial celebrations…

A new era was supposed to begin in Avengers #136 but a deadline was missed and instead ‘Iron Man: DOA!’ by Englehart, Tom Sutton & Mike Ploog was reprinted from Amazing Adventures #12, wherein the newly-mutated and furry Hank McCoy AKA The Beast had attacked the Armoured Avenger whilst mind-controlled by evil mutants. You can find the story here.

This book, however, only offers the spiffy cover by Gil Kane, Joe Sinnott & John Romita, before normal service resumed with the Assemblers addressing their staffing issues by declaring ‘We Do Seek Out New Avengers!!’

Illustrated by Tuska & Vince Colletta, #137 depicted an eclectic mix of applicants – including Moondragon, Yellowjacket and The Wasp and an athletic, enigmatic guy bundled up in a raincoat…

No sooner have introductions begun than a cosmic villain attacks, hunting the honeymooning Scarlet Witch and Vision, but at far from his expected level of puissance. Easily escaping imminent doom, our heroes smell a rat – but sadly, not before the Wasp is gravely injured, resulting in a blazing battle with a ‘Stranger in a Strange Man!’ who proves to be far from what he claims…

After all the intergalactic, hyper-cosmic extravaganzas and extended epic antics, Avengers #139’s ‘Prescription: Violence!’ and #140’s ‘A Journey to the Center of the Ant’ resort to mayhem on a comfortingly down-to-Earth scale as malevolent foe Whirlwind tries to murder the bed-ridden Wasp, even as her devoted defender and husband Hank Pym/Yellowjacket succumbs to a growing affliction which dooms him to exponentially expand to his death… but only until a refreshed, returned Vision and bludgeoning Beast save the day in an extraordinary riff on classic Avengers history (which you can see in Avengers #93, if you want to)…

A new Englehart saga starts in #141 which also welcomed George Pérez & Colletta as new art team. ‘The Phantom Empire!’ heralded another complex, multi-layered epic combining superheroic Sturm und Drang with searing – for 1975, at least – political commentary. It all starts when Beast is ambushed by mercenaries from corporate behemoth Roxxon Oil.

He’s saved by ex-Avenger Captain America who had been investigating the company on a related case and – after comparing notes – realises something very big and very bad is going on…

Linking up with Thor, Iron Man, trainee Moondragon and the newly-returned newlyweds Vision and Scarlet Witch, they learn of another crisis after Hawkeye goes missing: probably captured by time-tyrant Kang…

Just as the Assemblage are splitting into teams, former child model Patsy Walker-Baxter (star of a bunch of Marvel’s girls’ market titles such as Patsy Walker and Patsy & Hedy) bursts in, threatening to expose Beast’s secret identity…

When he had first further mutated, McCoy had attempted to mask his anthropoid form, with Patsy helping in return for his promise to make her a superhero. Now she resurfaces, prepared to blackmail him into honouring his pledge. She is dragged along as one squad (Cap, Iron Man, Scarlet Witch and Vision) join Beast in returning to his old lab at Brand/Roxxon …where they are ambushed by alternate-Earth heroes The Squadron Supreme…

Meanwhile, Moondragon and Thor co-opt sometime ally Immortus and follow Hawkeye back to 1873. Bushwhacked, they are soon battling Kang beside a coterie of cowboy legends (Kid Colt, Night Rider, Ringo Kid, Rawhide Kid and Two-Gun Kid) in ‘Go West, Young Gods!’, even as the present-day team learn their perilous plight involves a threat to two different dimensions…

Roxxon have joined with the corporations that rule the Squadron Supreme’s parallel-Earth America – thanks to the malignly mesmeric Serpent Crown of Set. Inked by Sam Grainger, Avengers #143 sees the Wild West showdown culminate with the apparent death of a deity in ‘Right Between the Eons!’

Elsewhen, the 20th century heroes have commenced a counterattack in the esoteric weaponry factory at Brand, and – whilst running rampant – liberate from a storeroom a technologically-advanced, ability-enhancing uniform originally belonging to short-lived adventurer The Cat. When Patsy dons it, the hero-groupie neophyte dubs herself Hellcat in ‘Claws!’ (Mike Esposito inks)…

Soon after, the Avengers are cornered by the Squadron and as battle resumes, Roxxon president Hugh Jones plays his trump card and transports all combatants to the other Earth…

The dreaded deadline doom hit just at this crucial juncture and issues #145-146 were taken up with a 2-part fill-in by Tony Isabella, Heck & Tartaglione, with additional pencils by Keith Pollard for the concluding chapter.

‘The Taking of the Avengers!’ reveals how a criminal combine takes out a colossal contract on the team, but even though ‘The Assassin Never Fails!’ the killer is thwarted and Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Beast, Vision and Scarlet Witch, Wasp, Yellowjacket and The Falcon are all safely returned to their various cases, untroubled by the vagaries of continuity or chronology… which makes this rather impressive yarn such an annoyance in this specific instance…

Trans-dimensional traumas resume in Avengers #147, describing a ‘Crisis on Other-Earth!’ courtesy of Englehart, Pérez & Colletta). With the corporate takeover of other-America revealed to have been facilitated by use of the serpent crown, the Scarlet Witch takes possession of the sinister helm as her teammates try desperately to keep the overwhelming Squadron Supreme from reclaiming it.

On our Earth, Hawkeye brings Two-Gun Kid to the modern world, but chooses to go walkabout rather than rejoin his comrades, even as Thor and Moondragon start searching for their missing colleagues…

‘20,000 Leagues Under Justice!’ (Grainger inks) begins the final showdown with the Avengers’ victory over a wiser and repentant Squadron Supreme, and as the heroes return to their home dimension ‘The Gods and the Gang!’ reunites them with Moondragon and the Thunder God in time to clean up Brand/Roxxon. However, the Corporate cabal has one nasty trick left to play: a colossal, biologically augmented Atlantean dubbed Orka, the Human Killer Whale!’ He’s not enough to save them…

Supplementing the circumstances above described is the cover to all-reprint Giant-Size Avengers #5 (by John Buscema & George Roussos) and contemporaneous features from Marvel’s FOOM magazine #12 which spotlighted the romance and weddings with a Vision cover by John B & P. Craig Russell, back cover image by Paty (Cockrum) & Al Milgrom; an overview of the awesome android in ‘Visions’ and ‘Vision, This is Your Life!’ and David Anthony Kraft’s ‘The Scarlet Witch: Meditations on a Ms.’ – all including early art contributions from John Byrne, Paty, Dave Wenzel – plus an extended family pin-up.

Also on view are a Charley Parker spoof strip starring ‘The Visage’, extended interviews ‘Steve Englehart Speaks!: Journey to the center of a Vision’ and ‘Roy Thomas Speaks!: Journey to the center of a Vision’.

The next issue would see a drastic changing of the guard, but this epic tome concludes with even more extras including the covers – by Jack Kirby & Frank Giacoia – and Frontispiece contents page of tabloid Marvel Treasury Edition #7; a wealth of rousing house ads; Neal Adams’ painted cover for Marvel Index #3, its back cover by Franc Reyes and Frontispiece by Peter Iro; the pre-corrections cover to Giant-Size Avengers #2 plus pages of original art by Sal Buscema, Staton, Tuska & Chiaramonte.

Roy Thomas and Steve Englehart were at the forefront of Marvel’s second generation of story-makers, brilliantly building on and consolidating the compelling creation of Lee, Kirby & Ditko: spearheading and constructing a logical, fully functioning miracle-machine of places and events that so many others were inspired by and could add to. Between them they also showed how much more graphic narratives could be, and these terrific tales are perfect examples of superhero sagas done just right.

This type of timeless heroic adventure set the tone for fantastic Fights ‘n’ Tights dramas for decades to come and can still boggle the mind and take the breath away, even here in the sleek, cool and permanently perilous 21st century…

No lovers of Costumed Dramas can afford to ignore this superbly bombastic book and fans who think themselves above superhero stories might also be pleasantly surprised…
© 2022 MARVEL.

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Batman’s Mystery Casebook


By Sholly Fisch, Christopher A. Uminga & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-7795-0586-6 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Wonderfully Watching What’s What… 9/10

In recent years DC has opened up its shared superhero universe: generating Original Graphic Novels featuring its many stars in stand-alone adventures for the demographic so sadly misnamed Young Adult. To date, results have been rather hit or miss, but when they’re good, they are very good indeed…

Another sublime example of the process at its best is this cheery practical class in crimefighting: picking the brains and capitalising on the experience of Gotham’s greatest gangbusters and delivering details in the form of a comics activity book for all ages…

Author Sholly Fisch is no stranger to comics, having splendidly scripted Scooby Doo in various print incarnations and almost every DC superhero in All-New Batman: The Brave and the Bold and other animation-based spin-offs, Superman, Star Wars and so much more. When not doing that, he’s a developmental psychologist consulting for companies who make digital games and toys, with clients including Sesame Street, Cyberchase, The Magic School Bus Rides Again and The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That. If you love fun superheroics and vintage comics trivia, you should seek out his work.

Cartoonist/designer/visualiser Christopher A. Uminga has worked for many media giants including DC Comics/Warner Bros., Lucasfilm, Foot Locker, Disney’s WonderGround Gallery and more, and is assisted in making this complex and arresting tome work by colourist Silvana Brys and lettering entity Andword Design (Morgan Martinez, Justin Birch & Deron Bennett)…

A quick word to the wise: Although for years DC’s mainstream continuity has depicted the Dark Knight as a driven and tormented borderline sociopath doing good for what seems to be all the wrong reasons, Batman has always been an archetype who works for all ages on vastly differing levels. This version is far more Caped Crimecrusher than Bat out of Hell, and reaffirms his reputation as “the World’s Greatest Detective” in a series of “fair play mystery” vignettes with the reader invited to pay close attention and participate at every moment of each case. Kids can enjoy alone or with the grandparents who watched the 1966 Batman TV phenomenon unfold and the parents who watched the 1990s movies and stunning Batman: The Animated Adventures series they spawned…

It begins in ‘Prologue: Whodunit?’ as Batman, Robin & Batgirl examine a crime scene and talk the readers through the clues left behind that lead to their deduction of the culprit…

With every reader fully briefed ‘Chapter 1: The Case of the Perilous Puzzles’ sees The Riddler running riot, obsessively dropping his verbal hints for us to solve, but don’t get so caught up that you miss the cunning visual clues scattered around since the Dynamic Duo might be too busy escaping death traps to spot them…

Each adventure is augmented by a quick lesson in historical criminology, deduction and data gathering (just like the old Dick Tracy Crime Stoppers feature) beginning with a foundation in forensic science courtesy of ‘Batcave Crime Lab: Crime Scene Investigation’ with Clayface inadvertently assisting enquiries…

Of course Two-Face stars in second chapter ‘The Case of the Dual Identity’ and the hunt offers many chances to study modus operandi before the boom is lowered, after which ‘Batcave Crime Lab: Fingerprints’ reveals the secrets of the ancient system…

World-weary cop Harvey Bullock and Catwoman are involved in third chapter ‘The Case of the Art Attack’ but Batgirl – and the reader! – can’t be rushed to hasty conclusions if they think things through, whilst ‘Batcave Crime Lab: Tracks’ offers a quick refresher on Locard’s Exchange Principle (weren’t you paying attention last chapter?) as we learn to watch where we – and everybody else – steps…

Bruce Wayne and Alfred Pennyworth show off their skills in civilian style for ‘The Case of the History Mystery’ which take us back to WWI and an encounter with Enemy Ace Hans von Hammer, augmented by some modern milestones in ‘Batcave Crime Lab: DNA’…

We’re back in supervillain territory for chapter 5 as ‘The Case of the Cold Cash’ seems to prove chilly Mister Freeze is the bad guy… until our heroes take a closer look, complemented by the Terrific Trio taking stock of fraud in ‘Batcave Crime Lab: Fakes and Phonies’…

Batgirl and Robin have their wits truly tested in ‘The Case of the Digital Ghost’ before ‘Batcave Crime Lab: Eyewitness Testimony’ wonderfully tests every reader’s memory and visual acuity – with helpful hints from Commissioner Gordon – as we rush to the conclusion in Chapter 7 as The Joker and Harley Quinn threaten appalling consequences for all in ‘The Case of the Perilous Parade’: a thrilling manhunt that literally demands your full attention…

‘Epilogue’ then provides a summation from Batman and a so-cool poster to declare “Case Closed!” on this vivid and vibrant anticrime primer… for now!

The caseload is done-in-one (hopefully only until we get a sequel and series puh-leeeze!) but this tome also offers a tantalising peek at Sara Farizan & Nicoletta Baldari’s Gotham-set tale of bullying and being the new kid My Buddy Killer Croc that’s also worth some of your time and attention…

Smart, compelling, brilliantly entertaining, astoundingly infectious and deliciously addictive, Batman’s Mystery Casebook is a superbly challenging activity and adventure romp packed with charm and wit to captivate fans and nervous neophytes alike: one introducing a new wondrous world with a rousing reminder that all is never as it seems…
© 2022 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Carnage Epic Collection: Born in Blood 1991-1994


By David Michelinie, Tom DeFalco, Terry Kavanagh, J.M. DeMatteis, Mark Bagley, Ron Lim, Alex Saviuk, Tom Lyle, Sal Buscema, Steven Butler & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-4662-3 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Massive Marvel Mayhem… 7/10

After a shaky start in 1962 The Amazing Spider-Man soon became a popular sensation with kids of all ages, rivalling the creative powerhouse that was Lee & Kirby’s Fantastic Four. Soon the quirky, charming, action-packed comicbook soap-opera would become the model for an entire generation of younger heroes elbowing aside the staid, (relatively) old costumed-crimebusters of previous publications.

You all know the story: Peter Parker was a smart but alienated kid bitten by a radioactive spider during a school science trip. Discovering he had developed astonishing arachnid abilities – which he augmented with his own natural chemistry, physics and engineering genius – the kid did what any lonely, geeky nerd would do with such newfound prowess: he tried to cash in for girls, fame and money.

Making a costume to hide his identity in case he made a fool of himself, Parker became a minor media celebrity – and a criminally self-important one. To his eternal regret, when a thief fled past him one night he didn’t lift a finger to stop him, only to find when he returned home that his guardian uncle Ben Parker had been murdered.

Crazed with a need for vengeance, Peter hunted the assailant who had made his beloved Aunt May a widow and killed the only father he had ever known, finding, to his horror, that it was the self-same felon he had neglected to stop. His irresponsibility had resulted in the death of the man who raised him, and the traumatised boy swore to forevermore use his powers to help others…

Since that night the wondrous wallcrawler has tirelessly battled miscreants, monsters and madmen, with a fickle, ungrateful public usually baying for his blood even as he perpetually saves them.

In the anything-goes, desperate hurly-burly of the late 1980s and 1990s, fad-fever and spin-off madness obsessed the superhero genre in America as comics publishers hungrily exploited every trick to bolster flagging sales. In the mad melee Spider-Man spawned an intractable enemy called Venom: a disgraced and deranged reporter named Eddie Brock who bonded with Parker’s black costume (an semi-sentient alien parasite called the Symbiote) and become a savage, shape-changing dark-side version of the amazing arachnid.

Eventually the spidery adversaries reached a brooding détente and Venom became a “Lethal Protector”, dispensing a highly individualistic brand of justice everywhere but New York City.

However, the danger had not completely passed. When the Symbiote went into breeding mode it created a junior version of itself that merged with a deranged psycho-killer named Cletus Kasady (in Amazing Spider-Man #344, March 1991). The relevant pages by David Michelinie, Erik Larsen, Mark Bagley & Randy Emberlin open this collection…

Totally amoral, murderously twisted and addicted to both pain and excitement, Kasady became the terrifying metamorphic Carnage – a kill-crazy monster who carved a bloody swathe through the Big Apple before Spider-Man and Venom united to stop him.

Collecting a franchise-wide crossover which originally appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #331-363, 378-380, Web of Spider-Man #101-103 Spectacular Spider-Man #201-203, Spider-Man #35-37, and with material from Amazing Spider-Man #344-345, 359-360, Spider-Man Unlimited #1-2 and Amazing Spider-Man Annual #28 (spanning February 1991 to August 1993), this mammoth and extremely controversial summer event featured the inevitable return of the terrifying travesty and his bloodcurdling assault on everything Parker held dear: family, responsibility, love and the heartfelt faith that killing was never justifiable…

It all begins with pertinent extracts from Amazing Spider-Man #344 &345 (March & April 1991) and 359-360 (February – March 1992) as Michelinie, Chris Marrinan & Keith Williams detail Carnage’s escape and first kills before the beast’s proper debut in Amazing Spider-Man #361-363 as Michelinie, Bagley & Emberlin unleash the shapeshifting slaughterer on New York in ‘Savage Genesis!’, ‘Savage Alliance!’ and ‘Savage Grace!’, necessitating Spidey and the Human Torch breaking Venom out of his well-deserved incarceration to help stop a murder spree beyond imagining…

All that is mere aperitif to a monstrous main course of fast, furious and ferocious chaos that kicks off in‘Carnage Rising!’ by Tom DeFalco, Ron Lim & Jim Sanders III from Spider-Man Unlimited #1.

When a seemingly powerless Cletus Kasady is moved from ultra-high security penitentiary The Vault to an experimental lab at Ravencroft Asylum, ambitious psychiatrist Dr. Pournella believes she can cure the monster’s underlying psychosis. Those opinions die with her and the rest of the staff and security officers when the long-dormant Carnage entity manifests and breaks free…

Across town, tormented by guilt and shame, newlyweds Peter Parker and Mary Jane (nee Watson) are attending the funeral of their friend Harry Osborn – who had gone mad and perished battling Spider-Man as the second Green Goblin. As the downcast hero wallows in soul-searching and wonders at the point of his life, in Ravencroft a nihilistic scourge of insane bloodlust rampages through the facility until he is stopped in his tracks by another inmate.

Shriek is a creature after Carnage’s own heart: a survivor of appalling childhood abuse who found she possessed incredible powers to make all her vile drives and dreams come true…

Instantly attracted to each other, the pair join forces as a twisted “couple”, resolved to kill as often and as many as they can…

Escaping into New York they soon encounter and battle a mystical, nigh-mindless Spider-Man Doppelganger – which has been stalking the Webslinger since the end of the Infinity War crossover event – and adopt it. Together, the ultimate embodiment of a dysfunctional family set out to teach the city the pointlessness of life and the imminent inevitability of remorseless death…

Peter meanwhile has quarrelled with Mary Jane, but after making up, he hears of the bloodbath at Ravencroft and dutifully rushes off to recapture Carnage. Utterly unprepared for the trio of terror, he is savagely beaten: barely escaping with his life…

The tale continues in ‘Dark Light: Maximum Carnage  Part 2’ (Web of Spider-Man #101, by Terry Kavanagh, Alex Saviuk & Don Hudson) wherein the incapacitated Arachnid is accosted by street thugs hungry for vengeance and only saved by the appearance of homeless vigilantes Cloak and Dagger.

These nomadic teens are juvenile runaways who fell into the clutches of drug-pushing gangsters. Amongst a group of abducted kids they were used as guinea pigs for new designer drugs, but though all other test subjects died horribly, Tyrone Johnson and Tandy Bowen were mutated by the chemical cocktail into something more – and less – than human.

Isolated, alone, and vengeful they swore to help other lost kids by fighting drug dealers and all who preyed on the weak in the blackest corners of New York City.

Cloak is connected to a dimension of darkness: able to teleport, become intangible, amplifying and feeding on the wickedness in his targets. His unceasing hunger for negative emotions must be regularly – if only temporarily – sated by super-acrobat Dagger’s dazzling radiance. Her power too has advantages and hazards. The light can cleanse the gnawing dependency afflicting addicts, but constantly, agonizingly, builds up within her when not released. Thus Cloak’s incessant hunger can be assuaged by her light-knives and his apparently insatiable darkness.

Whilst tending to Spider-Man – whose injuries include cripplingly painful broken ribs – Cloak & Dagger are ambushed by the Carnage clan and the consequent catastrophic clash razes the church they are sheltering in.

Shriek especially revels in chaos. She has battled Cloak before and loathes him, taking sublime joy in tormenting him. Her greatest triumph comes when she uses her sonic powers to disintegrate his beloved Dagger before his horrified eyes…

Succeeding chapters open with ‘Demons on Broadway’ (Amazing Spider-Man #378, by Michelinie, Bagley & Randy Emberlin) ramp up the tension as Venom returns to New York, determined to exterminate the appalling threat he inadvertently created. Severely wounded, Spider-Man seeks to console Cloak who is crazed with grief and fury. Elsewhere Carnage, Shriek and Doppelganger are simultaneously gloating, planning further bloodshed and fighting each other…

When Cloak disappears in a blink of black torment the barely conscious Wallcrawler resumes his search for the trio of horrors and instead stumbles upon another old foe – Demogoblin.

Originally a science-powered super-crook, the mercenary killer was cursed: mystically transformed into a supernatural scourge dedicated to cleansing Earth of sin. To his diseased mind that means slaughtering humans because they are all sinners…

As the messianic devil thrashes the utterly exhausted and overstretched Spider-Man in Central Park, Venom tracks down Kasady but is similarly crushed by Doppelganger, Shriek and his sadistically exultant “offspring”…

Brock barely escapes with his life and crawls to Peter and Mary Jane’s apartment in Spider-Man #35, driving Mrs. Parker crazy with fear and resentment. It seems as if the entire city is on the edge and ready to explode in rage, negativity and violence…

As Spider-Man resigns himself to working again with his murderous worst nightmare, Demogoblin joins Carnage’s fiendish family. The good guys recruit Peter’s ex-girlfriend The Black Cat to even the odds in ‘Team Venom’ (Michelinie, Tom Lyle & Scott Hanna), but by the time they find their constantly bickering homicidal foes, Cloak has already impetuously attacked them and lies close to death…

As another blockbusting battle ends in defeat for the heroes, the Amazing Arachnid finds himself berated and deserted by his own allies. Taken to task for his foolish unwillingness to use lethal force, Peter questions his ingrained reluctance to go ‘Over the Line!’ (Spectacular Spider-Man #201, by J.M. DeMatteis & Sal Buscema) even as Carnage adopts another psychotic menace into his growing killer kin. Cadaverous mutated clone Carrion shares their ambitions and eagerly joins in their avowed mission to kill every human in New York.

The blood-soaked brood are aided in their task by the very citizens they imperil, as an inexplicable wave of fear and hatred grips the populace, sparking savage rioting and a tide of death. The inflamed innocents even attempt to lynch Spider-Man when he comes to their aid…

As Parker faces an overwhelming crisis of conscience in ‘Sinking Fast’ (Kavanagh, Saviuk & Hudson from Web of Spider-Man #102), Venom’s vengeance squad recruits another old Spider-Man foe in the ghastly shape of Michael Morbius – a science-spawned Living Vampire with an unquenchable appetite for human blood. After years of death and torment, the helpless victim had recently begun to seek a form of redemption by only slaking his thirst on the truly wicked…

With her husband insanely risking his life beside allies as bad as the villains, Mary Jane attempts to ease her own rage by going clubbing, just as Carnage’s “carnival of chaos” tears into the fashionable nightspot eager to display their warped philosophy of senseless death.

She is only saved by the appearance of Team Venom, with Spider-Man arriving far too late to help. After helping to drive off the macabre marauders a heartbroken Parker is forced to accept the antihero’s methods: rejoining the squad in time to confront ‘The Gathering Storm’ (Amazing Spider-Man #379, Michelinie, Bagley & Emberlin).

As the notional white hats again spectacularly and pointlessly clash with the cotillion of crazies – resulting in the collateral deaths of the NYPD’s Extreme Emergency Team – a new player enters the conflict.

Deathlok was pacifist scientist Michael Collins until his consciousness was imprisoned within a cyborg body built to be the ultimate battlefield weapon. Rebelling against the corporate monsters who doomed him to “life” as a mechanical zombie, Collins turned the war body into a macabre force for justice, so when he detected strange energies at work in town he immediately entered the fray – and is trashed by Clan Carnage, just as Spider-Man and Cloak recruit idealistic mutant Firestar to their side…

Fighting chaos and terror with logic, the webspinner reasons that since all Symbiote spawn are chronically susceptible to excessive heat (as well as high energy sonic assault) a champion capable of emitting microwaves could turn the tide in humanity’s favour…

As the heroes lay their plans, ‘Hate is In The Air’ (Spider-Man #36; Kavanagh, Lyle & Hanna) exposes Kasady’s horrific childhood and events that shaped the unrepentant kill-crazed fiend. Meanwhile, martial arts hero Iron Fist steps in to rescue the broken Deathlok before the Venom gang again engages Carnage’s crew. They almost succeed, but for the rallying efforts of the increasingly rebellious and independent Shriek…

A secret is revealed in ‘The Turning Point!’ (Spectacular Spider-Man #202, DeMatteis & Buscema) as a crazed mob attacks the battling metahumans, and Shriek discloses her powers enable her to broadcast her own madness to the entire city, driving everyone into paroxysms of despair and fury. With Spider-Man actively urging Firestar to kill Carnage, the heroes’ ethical collapse seems assured…

From the depths of his soul Peter’s moral core finally breaks through the madness and he stops the equally conflicted microwave mutant from committing the ultimate sin, just as inspirational legend Captain America arrives to take charge…

With both Avengers and Fantastic Four otherwise occupied, the Sentinel of Liberty has rushed back to save ‘Sin City’ (Kavanagh, Saviuk & Hudson, Web of Spider-Man #103) from Armageddon: instantly rallying the hard-pressed heroes and their more ambivalent allies.

Sadly, his presence causes a schism and as mysterious vigilante Nightwatch joins the dark defenders in still more reactive, pointless violence, ‘Soldiers of Hope’ (Amazing Spider-Man #380, Michelinie, Bagley & Emberlin) sees Parker at last use his brains rather than brawn. With Cap’s resources, the philosophical discipline of Iron Fist and technical skills of Deathlok, a weapon is devised to disable and even cure the frenzied killers running wild in the streets…

An even greater turnabout occurs in ‘The Light!’ (DeMatteis, Lyle, Hanna & Al Milgrom; Spider-Man #37) as, at the height of the most savage battle yet, all factions are stunned by the luminescent resurrection of Dagger, who spearheads a triumphant ‘War of the Heart!’ (Spectacular Spider-Man #203, DeMatteis & Buscema) that crushes the clan and kills Carnage…

Of course it’s never that easy and the cunning maniac is only shamming, as exhausted and traumatised Spider-Man and Venom discover when the blood-red maniac ambushes them in one last all-or-nothing attack in ‘The Hatred, the Horror, & the Hero!’ by DeFalco, Bagley, Lim, Sanders III & Sam de la Rosa (Spider-Man Unlimited #2). It almost works, but in the end, battered, bruised bloodied but ultimately uncompromised, the heroes are triumphant and the horrors are caged again…

By way of epilogue Amazing Spider-Man Annual #28 (1994) picks over ‘The Mortal Past’ (Michelinie, Steven Butler & Bud LaRosa) as Kasady escapes whilst being transported to the Vault and Spider-Man goes after him. More appalling secrets of the killer’s childhood are exposed and buckets of blood are spilled as the maniac takes refuge with his only friend… until the wallcrawler spoils that too and earns Carnage’s undying hatred all over again…

Also included are an unused cover and a bound-in poster and the 1993 Carnage TPB by Bagley & Emberlin; facts, pranks and illustrations from Marvel-Year-in-Review: Bring on the Bad Guys; the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Master Edition; A wraparound cover by Bart Sears from Wizard Magazine, and Micheline’s Introduction from another TPB, DeMatteis’ Afterword, plus covers of successive editions by Ron Lim, Emberlin, deleted and edited scenes. There is trading card art by Steve Lightle & Paul Mounts, the cover – by Lyle – and articles from Marvel Age #123 (April 1993), a wealth or original art pages by Bagley Emberlin & Lyle and variant and 2nd print covers.

If you love the extended hyperbolic, continual conflict which is at the core of all Costumed Dramas, this non-stop battle bonanza is a grand way to spoil yourself. Logic and pacing are subsumed into one long, escalating struggle, and a working knowledge of the players is largely unnecessary to the raw, brutal clash of wills, ideologies and super-powers. One fair warning however: although handled with a degree of reserve and taste, this yarn has an appalling body count and scenes of torture that might upset younger fans of the Amazing Arachnid.
© 2022 MARVEL.