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Superman & Batman vs Vampires & Werewolves


By Kevin VanHook & Tom Mandrake (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2292-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

The Man of Tomorrow and the Dark Knight are two characters who have, for the most part, escaped their lowly comics origins to join a meta-fictional literary landscape populated by the likes of Mickey Mouse, Tarzan and Sherlock Holmes. As such their recognition factor outside our industry means that they get to work in places and with other properties that might not appeal to funny-book purists.

Take for example this out-of-print tale that piles on heaped helpings of monster-bashing, and which, despite a host of guest-stars, felt on release more like a test launch than a assured hit and has since become as vanishingly vaporous as its arcane antagonists…

Superman & Batman vs. Vampires & Werewolves is an intriguing, if flawed, oddment (with one of the clunkiest titles ever imagined) that should have appealed to the casual reader, especially if they’re not too adamantly wedded to the comic book roots and continuity of the DC Universe.

Prowling the streets of Gotham City, Batman comes across a partially devoured corpse and is promptly boots-deep in an invasion of mindless berserker vampires and werewolves who turn the city into a charnel house. Helpless to combat or contain the undead rampage, the Caped Crimebuster accepts the aid of enigmatic (but rational) vampire Marius Dimeter and his lycanthropic counterpart Janko who grudgingly ally themselves with the hero to track down Herbert Combs – a truly deranged scientist resolved to traffic with the Realms Beyond.

To facilitate his goals, Combs turned Janko and Dimeter into the accursed creatures they are and unleashed his plague of horrors on America to further his research. The bonkers boffin is infecting more helpless humans and has become an actual portal for Lovecraftian beasts to invade our reality…

Superman joins the fray just as one of these Elder God nightmares is unleashed, but even after its defeat he’s no real help: hampered more by his ethical nature than utter vulnerability to magic. Far greater aid is provided by super-naturalist Jason Blood and his Demonic alter-ego, whilst Kirk Langstrom – who can transform into the monstrous Man-Bat at will – provides both scientific and brutally efficient clean-up assistance.

Fellow harder-edged heroes such as Wonder Woman, Nightwing and Green Arrow turn up and join the battle to great effect, but after their admittedly impressive cameos and participatory contributions inexplicably wander off before the overarching threat is ended…

Nuh-uuh! Once a team-up begins, comics guys (who aren’t paid big bucks like big-name guest actors) don’t leave until the day is saved!!

So it’s up to the headliners – with Dimeter and Janko – to finally restore order and normality, even though the cost is high both in blood and convictions…

At the last, the superheroes are – relatively – victorious, but the ending is rather ambiguous and leaves the impression that the whole affair has been a pilot for a Dimeter spin-off…

This was clearly a break-out publishing project, aimed at drawing in new readerships like those occasional movie tie-ins that drive professional fans crazy, and on that level the daft and inconsistent plot can be permitted, if not fully forgiven.

VanHook (Flash Gordon, Bloodshot, G.I. Joe, Red Tornado) makes more films than comics these days and the tale is certainly most effective on the kind of action and emotional set-pieces one sees in blockbuster flicks: so even if there are far too many plot holes big enough to drive a hearse through, the sensorial ride should carry most readers through. Most importantly, the moody art of Tom Mandrake (Grimjack, The Spectre, Batman, Firestorm, Martian Manhunter) is – as ever – astoundingly powerful: dark, brooding and fully charged for triumph and tragedy…

So if not perhaps for every reader, there’s a great deal of sinful pleasure to be found here. And let’s face it: who doesn’t like monster stories or finding out “who would win if”…
© 2008, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Supernatural: Origins & Supernatural: The Dogs of Edinburgh


Supernatural: Origins
By Peter Johnson, Geoff Johns, Matthew Don Smith & various (DC/WildStorm)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1701-3 (TPB/Digital edition) 978-1-84576-754-7 (TPB Titan Books edition)

Supernatural: The Dogs of Edinburgh
By Brian Wood, Grant Bond, Matthew Don Smith & various (DC Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3506-2 (TPB/Digital edition)

Comics have always enjoyed a long, successful affiliation and nigh-symbiotic relationship with television, but in these days when even the ubiquitous goggle-box business is paralysed and endangered by on-demand streaming, too many channels and far too much choice, the numbers and types of program that migrate to funnybooks is increasingly limited.

Excluding kids’ animation shows, cult fantasy adventure series now predominate in this dwindling arena and one of the best to make that transition to the printed page was the epic monster-fighting saga of two brothers literally on the road to Hell as they tracked down unnatural horrors, mystical malignancies and all the unexplainable things that treat humanity as fair game and delicious delicacies…

Over 15 seasons of 327 episodes and spanning from September 13th 2005 to November 19th, 2020, TV series Supernatural followed Sam and Dean Winchester whose lives were forever changed when a yellow-eyed demon killed their mother. The horrific event drove distraught John Winchester into a life of eternal wandering: stalking and killing impossible beasts and horrors he now knew lurked in every shadow.

Years later, rumours still abound that the show will return… soon!

After growing up from a baby on the road to hell, Sam got out of the life and tried to live a normal existence before being dragged back when his surly, alienated brother called to say that their dad had gone missing. It happened right about the time Sam’s girlfriend was killed by a fiery demon…

If you’re looking for a spooky, rowdy, funny binge watch, go no further. Moreover, as we do comics here and the series was rapidly picked up for a spinoff funnybook series, you could also enjoy some printed scary stories…

Supernatural: Origins is an impressive official prequel to the epic show, following the dysfunctional Winchester family in the days, months and years after the boys’ mother floated up into the air and spontaneously combusted. It left their father with unanswerable questions, a hunger for vengeance and two rather unnatural kids to raise…

After Mary’s death, John packs toddler Dean and baby Sam into his car and goes into a spin of booze and bar-fights, until he meets palm-reader Missouri Mosley. The prognosticator offers veiled answers and a glimpse into a world of mumbo-jumbo which is proven to be savagely real when an unseen thing kills Mary’s best friend Julie. She was babysitting the traumatised boys at the time of her demise, and lodged in her ghastly remains was a huge, rune-carved fang from no creature ever born on Earth…

Armed only with hints into the true nature of the world, the former marine begins a quest for the tooth’s owner and in Tempe, Arizona meets prickly, reclusive scholar Fletcher Gable. He identifies it as belonging to a Black Shuck… a Hellhound…

Sending the senior Winchester on to a reported sighting of such in California, the savant offers a further gift: a blank journal to record the notes, photos, clippings, drawings, thoughts and experiences that will inevitably occur and need reporting now that father and sons are irrevocably set on their particular road to Perdition…

The wise man and his latest student are both painfully unaware that Winchester is himself being hunted…

When Mary’s formidable brother Jacob comes looking for the boys and fearing the worst (although he has no idea of what the can worst actually be), he too is embroiled in the quest – to his eternal regret – and only the arrival of the mysterious shadower saves John from becoming the latest casualty of the hellhound…

‘Hunter’ – more job description than name – helps Winchester clear up the mess and cover up the evidence before introducing the now-doubly bereaved and shell-shocked single parent to the full horror of the hidden world of the Supernatural. It’s 1983 and all Hell’s breaking loose…

Winchester becomes part of an amorphous hidden association of loners known as Hunters: mortals who’ve lost loved ones, seen the truth and had the guts to look for payback. Partnered with his brusque and enigmatic mentor, John Winchester is still looking for a golden eyed demon and a hellhound with a missing fang as he tackles his first monster – a leaping carnivore known as a “Heeler” with Hunter and another clean-up man named Ichi.

Sadly, by the time the trio return to the grimly unique bar called Harvell’s Roadhouse – where Sam & Dean have been waiting under the lethally efficient care of waitress Ellen – John is a full-blooded monster killer. Good thing too, as Ichi isn’t friendly or human anymore…

Thus begins a perilous pattern: John and Hunter dumping the kids on someone oblivious or horribly in on the secret for a few days as they take care of business. That journal rapidly fills up with accounts of incredible horror…

Winchester learns fast and, after meeting a resurrected priest who grants him a few precious, tainted moments with Mary’s spirit, he and his extremely hands-on senior partner revisit Fletcher Gable with useful intel on the rune-carved fang. Before long they’re headed to one of the spookiest locations in America and an appalling gauntlet of terrors, a confrontation with the hellhound and its master, inevitable betrayal and an explanation for all that the bereaved father and his sons have endured…

Dotted with moving, telling “flashbacks” – like the moment in 1991 when independent, lethally dangerous Dean has enough and tries to run away, abandoning dad and little brother to an interminable legion of monsters – this initial chronicle also includes a short tale of the boys by Geoff Johns, Phil Hester & colourist JD Mettler.

‘Speak No Evil’ harks back to a day in 1989 when taciturn Sam asked his big brother just how their mother died. He might even have received an answer if a demon hadn’t smashed through the motel window just then, locked in a death grip with their father…

This rip-snorting, tense and moody thriller lives up to the demands of the dedicated TV following and still fulfils all that’s demanded of a horror comic for readers who haven’t tracked the torturous trail of the Winchesters, and this chilling compendium even offers in-process views of covers by Tim Sale, plus pin-ups, working drawings and sketches by series illustrator Matthew Dow Smith.

 

Supernatural: The Dogs of Edinburgh compiles volume 4 #1-6 from 2011, and was written by Brian Wood (DMZ, X-Men, Northlanders, Moon Knight), with art from Grant Bond (Revere, The Clockwork Girl) & Matthew Don Smith. It examines a different piece of the past and sees Sam returning to Scotland after years away.

Back then, he was no killer of killers but a student on a research grant from Stamford University. His journey of discovery to Edinburgh University was initially educational, but immensely brightened by meeting mysterious lass Emma – “of the Isles” – who seemed interested in exactly the same arcane nonsense he was. She was also really pretty…

It turned out that Emma was a Breaker – the Scottish equivalent of Hunters – and as they grew closer she showed him the mystic highlights of the ancient city. He found himself falling, but was also increasingly aware that Emma wasn’t like other girls…

Meeting ghosts and battling an immortal who ran with feral city demon-dogs and controlled numerous crime rackets, they got too close, ended a monster menace together and inevitably parted…

As opening arc ‘The Dogs of Edinburgh’ gives way to present-day sequel ‘Emma of the Isles’, Sam examines a stash of notes, photos and a plane ticket. After all this time Emma has sent them to him and now he’s heading back to Scotland…

The mystery trek leads him to a remote village on the coast and a reserved room at the Clachan Inn. There he reads decades of clippings about drowned girls, but finds no sign of Emma. By the time she finally makes contact, the Hunter has deduced what’s behind the countless deaths, if not why, and the ghastly dreams he’s been experiencing are starting to form a pattern..

A charming legend becomes ghastly truth after he is attacked by nocturnal predators and saved by Emma, who gradually shares the truth of her origins but not her plan to end an eternal cycle of death and procreation. All they have to do is survive a determined assault by an entire tribe of “Selkies”…

This time, however, Sam is no unseasoned kid. He’s a trained hunter, with a lethally-skilled brother who will drop everything and cross an ocean to save his family. All Sam has to do is stay alive and hope to divine what Emma really is and what she really wants…

With covers by Dustin Nguyen and a tranche of concept art by Grant Bond, this twisted romance is a powerful seasonal mystery yarn to delight fright fans and another example of the eerie adventures that made Supernatural such an undying delight.

Punchy, powerful and spookily addictive… get them before they get you…
© 2008 Warner Bros Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Supernatural and all characters, distinctive likenesses and related elements are © Warner Bros Entertainment, Inc.
© 2012 Warner Bros. Television Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Supernatural and all characters, distinctive likenesses and related elements are © 2011, 2012 Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc.

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Superman vs Muhammad Ali Deluxe Edition


By Neal Adams, Denny O’Neil, Dick Giordano, Terry Austin, Gaspar Saladino & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2841-5 (HB/Digital edition)

It’s a fact (if such mythological concepts still exist): the American comic book industry would be utterly unrecognisable without the invention of Superman. His unprecedented adoption by a desperate and joy-starved generation quite literally created a genre if not art form.

Within three years of his June 1938 debut, the intoxicating blend of eye-popping action and social wish-fulfilment which hallmarked the early Man of Steel had grown to encompass cops-and-robbers crime-busting, socially reforming dramas, science fiction, fantasy, whimsical comedy and – once the war in Europe and the East embroiled America – patriotic relevance.

If only in comic book terms, Superman is master of the world, having utterly changed the shape of a fledgling industry and entertainment in general. There have been newspaper strips, radio and TV shows, cartoons, games, toys, apparel, merchandise and blockbusting movies. Everyone on Earth gets a picture in their head when they hear the name.

Another icon – a magnificently human one – was a sporting legend who became a paragon of black liberation and human equality, as well as global symbol of power, endurance and dignity. He was an American prizefighter who started life as Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., before finding his true name and purpose…

Born in Louisville, Kentucky on January 17th 1942 – so, technically, also a son of the Golden Age – Clay began boxing at age 12. He won titles and acclaim – and later notoriety – not simply for his incredible sporting achievements but for his quick wits, cultural savvy and moral standing. Gold medal Olympian, World heavyweight champion, critic, pundit and street poet, in 1966 Clay took on the American government and paid a high personal price for refusing to fight a white man’s war in Vietnam.

A forceful lifetime advocate of equal rights, in 1964, the Conscientious Objector had converted to Islam and formally renounced his “slave name”, adopting new appellation Muhammad Ali. A living symbol of black pride during the Civil Rights era, Ali retired from boxing in 1981, concentrating on commercial, social, political and philanthropic works. He was declared Sportsman and Sports Personality of the (20th) Century by Sports Illustrated and the BBC respectively, and died in June 2016 from complications associated with Parkinson’s disease.

As part of his campaign to draw attention to his causes, in 1977 “The Greatest” agreed to a headline-grabbing exhibition bout with the “World’s Greatest Superhero” which was released in January 1978 in the flashy, oversized tabloid iteration that was the decade’s equivalent of today’s prestige print formats. Originally published as All-New Collectors’ Edition volume 7, #C-56, the project was very much the baby of another phenomenon of the era…

Neal Adams was born on Governors Island, New York City, on June 15th 1941. His family were career military and he grew up on bases across the world. In the late 1950s, Adams studied at the High School of Industrial art in Manhattan, graduating in 1959.

As the turbulent, revolutionary 1960s opened, the illustrator had worked in advertising and ghosted some newspaper strips whilst trying to break into comics. In pursuing a commercial art career – advertising and “real art” – he did some comics pages for Joe Simon at Archie Comics (The Fly and that red-headed kid too) before becoming one of the youngest artists to co-create and illustrate a major licensed newspaper strip: Ben Casey, based on a popular TV medical drama series. His first attempts to find work at DC were not successful…

That comic book fascination never faded, however, and as the sixties progressed Adams drifted back to National/DC, working on covers as inker or penciller. After “breaking in” via anthological war comics, he eventually found himself at the vanguard of a revolution in pictorial storytelling, much of it with similarly socially-inclined writer Denny- O’Neil (with whom he had spearheaded an age of “relevancy” in Green Lantern/Green Arrow)…

As well as a comics iconoclast, Adams was a tireless social activist and campaigner. His mission as champion of creators rights even finally secured some long-ignored liberties and rewards for the formerly invisible stars of comic books like Jerry Seigel & Joe Shuster…

For the high-profile Superman vs Muhammad Ali project – immortalised here in a splendidly oversized (187 x 283 mm) commemorative Deluxe collection – Adams even latterly assumed much of the writing thanks to his affinity for the stars and the subject. He also gets in the first word in his ‘Introduction’ before the saga begins…

As well as worthy and well-intentioned, the bombastic saga is also intoxicatingly exciting and well-executed: a classic invasion tale that finds the Man of Steel helpless before an encircling alien armada pointing appalling weapons at the world. Unable to counter the overwhelming force determined to eradicate or enslave troublesome humanity before they become a threat to all the civilised species of the universe, Superman must play a more devious game…

The Scrubb are a warrior race demanding Earth provide a representative champion to fight a single-combat duel as the means of determining the fate of their species. Forced to play the game by the rules of Scrubb leader Rat’Lar, Superman assumes he will fight for Earth, but is challenged by new friend Muhammad Ali who quite reasonably points out that the hero is only an adopted earthman, even as he shares a few fight tips in ‘Training’…

The fight to be the challenger is also manipulated by Rat’Lar, who broadcasts the event across the galaxies to cow and intimidate rival civilisations. The emperor makes great capital of the ‘Preliminary’ bout with the de-powered Kryptonian batting valiantly but in vain against the kid from Kentucky.

The result was never in doubt. Without powers, Superman could never handle Ali, and soon the grievously beaten superhero is stretchered out of the ring, leaving the boxer to face Scrubb champion Hun’Ya in the ‘Main Event’…

Exactly as Superman and Ali had planned…

Culminating in a battle of wits and blockbusting demonstration of human and superhuman brawn, this cathartic revel was never about showing whose hero is best, but how underdogs working together can defeat any opposition, even nasty aliens who have no intention of acting in good faith or fighting with honour…

Spectacular hokum, magnificently rendered, this is a treat for the eyes and endlessly re-readable, and this Deluxe tome enhances the visceral fun with loads of extras such as the original wraparound cover, and a ‘Seating Chart’ for the dozens of ringside celebrities Adams added to it plus some candid behind-the-scenes revelations in an ‘Afterword’ from then-DC publisher Jenette Khan. Moreover, art fans and history-buffs can delight in a selection of pencil page layouts and roughs in a copious ‘Sketches’ section, which includes script pages and creator ‘Bios’.

Fast, furious, enthralling and extremely rousing, Superman vs Muhammad Ali celebrates a classic moment of comics history: one that is endlessly appealing and rewarding, and one no fan should be without.
© 1978, 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved. Muhammad Ali and all associated marks are trademarks of Muhammad Ali Enterprises LLC © MAE LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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Chloe Noonan: Monster Hunter Digital Omnibus


By Mark Ellerby, with additional colours by Adam Cadwell (Great Beast Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78845-285-4 (Digest HB)

When the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer debuted, its mix of sassy teen culture, wry humour, scary adventure, soap opera group dynamics and supremely quotable zingers utterly revolutionised popular entertainment – but not as much as the kick-ass star who proved once and for all that girls could be action heroes.

In the wake of the phenomenon, cartoonist Marc Ellerby (Love the Way You Love, Phonogram: The Singles Club, Ellerbisms, Rick and Morty, Regular Show, Doctor Who) deployed the sarcastic whimsical contrariness we Brits are so grievously afflicted with and belatedly devised a wry riposte to the saga of the mystically superpowered American “Chosen One” and her dedicated team of troubleshooters…

Between 2009 and 2014, Ellerby self-published five issues (and a few extra bits) of Chloe Noonan: Monster Hunter – the sublimely daft exploits of a plucky, determined and utterly normal girl who splits her time between going to college and holding back the malign forces of darkness lurking all around us.

In 2012, the majority of these Kitchen Sink/School Daze/Eldritch Exploits were coloured and gathered in a Digital Omnibus. Here you can comfortably enjoy a jolly jump back in time and space to see how the nuts and bolts of saving humanity works with hilarious hits from Chloe Noonan #1-4, Chloe Noonan Halloween Special 2012, Chloe Noonan Christmas Special 2012 and material from Paper Science #5 and Solipsistic Pop #2-3.

The preternatural perils are preceded by ‘Just a quick word! An introduction from the author’ wherein we learn the origins of the feature and how and why it was remastered, before we finally meet the snarky, sarky, brittle “plain Jane” B-lister who’s nobody’s first choice to save the world…

As well as benefitting from added colour, these terror tales have been chronologically adjusted so keep your wits about you as Chapter 1/ Chloe Noonan #1 takes us to a chip shop in Raven Dale where two students are chatting. Chloe is reluctantly revealing she’s in a band to ingenuous hottie Zoe Fox, when the dowdy, meek-seeming redhead gets an urgent call. For reasons she cannot understand, Noonan suddenly breaks protocol – and her oath of secrecy – and invites Zoe to come along as she tackles a rampaging monster. Her duty is onerous, unpaid and voluntary, so they have to take the bus…

It’s a long ride, made truly interminable by having to disabuse her new friend of ridiculous TV-fuelled notions of the job’s glamour, innate magic powers and skill with ancient weaponry, but eventually they locate the beastly Dahgul. It is not willing to come along quietly…

Forced to consult irascible mentor Professor Lemon Barley, the increasingly pissed off Chloe resorts to her favourite solution – nets and really big bombs – but is then stuck babysitting the beast while she plays a gig with the band…

Issue #2 opened with an inconclusive clash against drunken lobster-horror Pinchy, before another tedious day at Raven’s Dale College commences. Watching guys – especially cute but gormless Doug Stonebridge – hitting on Zoe does nothing to lift her mood, especially after her new self-elected BFF blurts out Cloonan’s monster-hunting sideline. More grief about her failures from Barley follows, and the absolute end comes when Pinchy – AKA Skaldjur – invades the college looking for girls, booze and a rematch and sparking a riot. Chloe might be merely human – and not very fit – but the brute has turned up just when she really needed to hit something and gets just what he deserves…

She’s barely regained her composure when the top secret clean-up crew show up, delivering pat disinformation and trying to impress pretty little Zoe…

Chapter 3 comes from Paper Science #5: a brief encounter with band nerds and ice creams, before Chloe Noonan #3 reveals how bandmate Zach pilfers arcane lore from Chloe’s bag and enhances the latest gig by summoning arcane armageddon in the form of an awakened Kraken…

Thankfully, a full-on angry rant seems to be Chloe’s private superpower…

A brace of shorts from Solipsistic Pop #3 and #2 reveals how Chloe & Zoe deal with a gang of monster-seeming Chavs and annoying girl band Pozzy Pops before chapter 7 presents the full-length fun of Chloe Noonan #4 with the “Nooners”, Zoe and Doug spending an unpleasant night clubbing, only to find that even supernal haunts crave a good time, cheap drinks and ear-splitting beats. However, when Chloe tries to lay down the law, she gets an unlikely schooling in monster politics…

Chloe Noonan #3 delivers the next instalment as drunken Doug falls foul of supernatural Chavs (think Devil-Moomins) in a deserted playground, and Zoe drags her “Nooners” out of a well-earned sleep to save his undeserving ass after which ‘Trick or Treat’ (from Chloe Noonan Halloween Special 2012) sees awestruck Zoe dressing up as her hero for a spot of fancy-dress, door-to-door begging on October 31st. Of course, prowling darkened streets with a happier, prettier, sexier version of herself is everything Chloe dreaded it would be, and she’s in no mood to dick about when the real monsters turn up to celebrate “their” special day…

Wrapping up the spooky selection is the Chloe Noonan Christmas Special 2012 with the surly supernaturalist and Professor Barley dutifully and pointlessly hunting an unknown antagonist and enduring ‘A Very Noony Christmas’ whilst everybody else is getting outrageously inebriated at a major college party…

Accompanying the morose mirth is a ‘Cover Gallery’ (fronts and backs!) including a spiffy art print; a selection of ‘Fan Art’ by Will Kirkby, Tom Humberstone, Liz Prince and Luke Pearson and a fulsome (29 pages) and fascinating dip into the author’s ‘Annotated Sketchbook’ as well as a ‘Biography’ of the creator.

Fun, funny, fiercely foolish and fabulously entertaining, this ancient arcane artefact is as fresh and festive as it ever was. Forget the Chosen One and just choose Chloe Noonan.
™ & © 2009-2012, 2020 Marc Ellerby. All rights reserved.

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Essential Tales of the Zombie volume 1


By Roy Thomas, Steve Gerber, Stan Lee, Kit Pearson, Marv Wolfman, Tony Isabella, Chuck Robinson, Chris Claremont, Don McGregor, Doug Moench, Gerry Conway, Lin Carter, John Albano, Gerry Boudreau, Len Wein, Carla Joseph, Kenneth Dreyfack, Carl Wessler, David Anthony Kraft, Larry Lieber, John Warner,  Tony DiPreta, Bill Everett, John Buscema, Tom Palmer, Pablo Marcos , Dick Ayers, Tom Sutton, Syd Shores, Gene Colan, Dick Giordano, Winslow Mortimer, George Tuska, Ralph Reese, Vincente Alcazar, Bill Walton, Enrique Badia, Rich Buckler, Vic Martin, Ron Wilson, Ernie Chan, Russ Heath, Frank Springer, Alfredo Alcala, Dan Green, Michael Kaluta, Mike Esposito, Frank Giacoia, Virgilio Redondo, Yong Montano, Tony DeZuñiga, Rudy Nebres, Boris Vallejo, Earl Norem & various (Marvel)
ISBN 0-7851-1916-7 (TPB)

Inspiration isn’t everything. In fact, as Marvel slowly grew to a position of market dominance in the wake of the losing their two most innovative and inspirational creators, they did so less by experimentation and more by expanding established concepts and properties. The only exception was an en masse creation of horror titles in response to the industry down-turn in super-hero sales – a move expedited by a rapid revision in the wordings of the increasingly ineffectual Comics Code Authority rules.

The switch to sinister supernatural stars brought numerous benefits. Most importantly, it drew a new readership to comics: one attuned to a global revival in spiritualism, Satanism and all things spooky. Almost as important, it gave the reprint-reliant company opportunity to finally recycle old 1950s horror stories that had been rendered unprintable and useless since the code’s inception in 1954.

Spanning August 1973 to March 1975, this moody monochrome tome collects Tales of the Zombie #1-10, plus pertinent portions of Dracula Lives #1-2 but – despite targeting the more mature monochrome magazine market of the 1970s – these stories are oddly coy for a generation born before  video nasties, teen-slasher movies or torture-porn, so it’s unlikely that you’ll need a sofa to hide behind…

The chillers commences with ‘Zombie!’ illustrated by unsung legend Tony DiPreta: one of those aforementioned, unleashed 1950s reprints which found its way as cheap filler into the back of Dracula Lives #1 (August 1973). In this intriguing pot-boiler criminal Blackie Nolan runs for his life when the man he framed for his crimes animates a corpse to exact revenge…

A few months earlier, Marvel Editor-in-Chief Roy Thomas had green-lit a new mature-reader anthology magazine starring a walking deadman, based on a classic 1953 Stan Lee/Bill Everett thriller published in Menace #5.

Cover-dated July 1973, Tales of the Zombie #1 contained a mix of all-new material, choice reprints and text features to thrill and chill the voodoo devotees of comics land. The undead excitement began with ‘Altar of the Damned’ by Thomas, Steve Gerber, John Buscema & Tom Palmer, introducing wealthy Louisiana coffee-magnate Simon Garth as he frantically breaks free of a voodoo cult determined to sacrifice him.

He is aided by priestess Layla who usually earns her daily bread as his secretary. Sadly, the attempt fails and Garth dies, only to be brought back as a mighty, mindless slave of his worst enemy Gyps – a petty, lecherous gardener fired for leering at the boss’ daughter…

Next comes a retouched, modified reprint of the aforementioned Everett ‘Zombie!’ yarn, adapted to depict Garth as the corpse-walker rampaging through Mardi Gras and inflicting a far more permanent punishment on the ghastly gardener, after which Dick Ayers limned ‘Iron Head’ as a deep sea diver take a decidedly different look at the native art of resurrection…

‘The Sensuous Zombie!’ is a cinematic history of the sub-genre and ‘Back to Back and Belly to Belly at the Zombie Jamboree Ball!’ delivers an editorial tribute to Bill Everett.

after which Kit Pearson, Marv Wolfman & Pablo Marcos expose the secret of ‘The Thing From the Bog!’ before Tom Sutton applies a disinterred tongue to his cheek for the blackly comic story of ‘The Mastermind!’.

Gerber, Buscema & Syd Shores the saga of Simon Garth in ‘Night of the Walking Dead!’, as the murdered man’s daughter loses the arcane amulet which controls the zombie to a psychotic sneak thief…

Dracula Lives #2 introduces ‘The Voodoo Queen of New Orleans!’ (Thomas, Gene Colan & Dick Giordano relates the Lord of Vampires’ clash with undying mistress of magic Marie Laveau (tenuously included here as the charismatic bloodsucker strides past the recently deceased Garth on a crowded Mardi Gras street) before Tales of the Zombie #2 unfolds in its gory entirety.

Gerber & Marcos led off with ‘Voodoo Island!’ as daughter Donna Garth takes ship for Port-Au-Prince, determined to learn all she can about the dark arts, whilst the shambling cadaver of her father is drawn into the nefarious affairs of criminal mastermind Mr. Six. By circuitous means, mindless but instinct-driven Garth also ends up in Haiti – just as a madman turning women into giant spiders decides Donna is an ideal test subject…

Luckily, the former coffee-king’s best friend Anton Cartier is a resident – and expert in Voodoo lore…

‘Voodoo Unto Others’ by Tony Isabella & Winslow Mortimer tells a grim but affecting tale of the law of the Loa, whilst ‘Acid Test’ by Stan Lee & George Tuska is another 1950’s thriller culled from Marvel’s vaults, followed by a text feature by Isabella trumpeting the company’s “next big thing” with ‘Introducing Brother Voodoo’…

It was back to contemporary times with stunning graveyard re-animator yarn ‘Twin Burial’ by Chuck Robinson & Ralph Reese, balanced by Colan classic ‘From Out of the Grave’ after which Chris Claremont asks in expansive prose piece, ‘Voodoo: What’s It All About, Alfred?’

Gerber & Marcos conclude their Garth saga in ‘Night of the Spider!’ before TotZ #3 sees the Zombie still lurching around Haiti in ‘When the Gods Crave Flesh!’, encountering a manic film director and his histrionic starlet wife who want to expose Voodoo to the judgemental celluloid eye of Hollywood.

Bad, bad, bad idea…

Claremont scripted a prose shocker next, contributing part 1 of ‘With the Dawn Comes Death!’ – illustrated with stock movie stills – before ‘Net Result’ offers another Atlas-era DiPreta delight, after which Isabella & Vincente Alcazar excel with an epic of samurai-against-dragon in ‘Warrior’s Burden’.

Don McGregor’s ‘The Night of the Living Dead Goes on and on and on’ provides in-depth analysis of the movie that restarted it all, and Bill Walton limns Fifties fear-fest ‘I Won’t Stay Dead’ before Doug Moench & Enrique Badia deliver a period piece of perfidious plantation peril in ‘Jilimbi[s Word’.

‘Tales of the Zombie Feature Page’ closes the issue with a Gerber interview and critique of George A. Romero’s film Codename: Trixie – which we know today as The Crazies – before Tales of the Zombie #4 (March 1974) opens with ‘The Law and Phillip Bliss’ as the mystic Amulet of Damballah irresistibly draws Garth back to New Orleans at the unwitting behest of a down-and-out with a grudge…

Another movie feature by McGregor follows, examining the spooky overtones of then-current Bond flick Live and Let Die, after which Gerry Conway, Rich Buckler, Vic Martin & Mortimer crafted a comic strip film-thriller in ‘The Drums of Doom!’

Fantasy author Lin Carter explores modern supernatural proliferation in ‘Neo-Witchcraft’ before ‘Courtship by Voodoo’ (Isabella & Ron Wilson) recounts Egyptian romantic antics, and Moench & Mortimer disclose the downside of desecrating graves in ‘Nightfilth Rising’.

John Albano & Ernie Chua (nee Chan) tell a tragic tale of ‘Four Daughters of Satan’ before ‘The Law and Phillip Bliss’ concludes in cathartic slaughter of high-priced lawyers, whilst ‘The Zombie Feature Page’ highlights the work and life of artist Pablo Marcos.

‘Palace of Black Magic!’ then sees Phil Glass lose the amulet – and control of Garth – to Mr. Six with the Zombie becoming a terrifying weapon of sinister Voodoun lord Papa Shorty, until his new master’s own arrogance lead to carnage and a kind of freedom for the Dead Man Walking. Issue #5 continues with Moench’s filmic tribute article ‘White Zombie: Faithful Unto Death’ and a Russ Heath Atlas classic ‘Who Walks with a Zombie?’

The concluding instalment of Claremont’s article ‘With the Dawn Comes Death!’ precedes text infomercial ‘Brother Voodoo Lives Again’ and new western horror saga ‘Voodoo War’ by Isabella, Shores & Ayers, and TotZ# 5 ends on a gritty high with ‘Death’s Bleak Birth!’: a powerful supernatural crime thriller by Moench & Frank Springer.

Tales of the Zombie #6 (July) opens with a handy update of events thus far before launching into Gerber & Marcos’ ‘Child of Darkness!’ wherein the anguished ambulatory remains of Simon Garth interrupt a Voodoo ritual and encounter once more the Mambo Layla, who tries in vain to save him before his death and revivification. Even together, they are unprepared for the vicious thing lurking in the swamp’s deepest recesses…

Gerry Boudreau explores the genre’s history by critiquing Hammer Films’ ‘The Plague of the Zombies’, followed by a hilarious photo-feature on Zombie/blacksploitation movie ‘Sugar Hill’ and Claremont’s article on all things undead ‘The Compleat Voodoo Man’.

Brother Voodoo initially ran in Strange Tales #169-173 (September 1973-April 1974) but ended on a cliffhanger. It finishes here in Moench, Len Wein, Colan & Frank Chiaramonte’s ‘End of a Legend!’ as the Man with Two Souls finally defeats Voodoo villain Black Talon.

Carla Joseph’s ‘The Voodoo Beat’ rounds up a selection of movies and books then available regarding all things Cadaverous and Fetishy before Moench & Alfredo Alcala provide a fill-in tale in ‘The Blood-Testament of Brian Collier’ wherein Garth shambles into a High Society murder-mystery, followed by a Village Voice article by Kenneth Dreyfack on ‘Voodoo in the Park’, notable for comics fans because it’s illustrated by future great Dan Green.

Moench & Mortimer’s comics featurette ‘Haiti’s Walking Dead’ and Claremont’s book review ‘Inside Voodoo’ take us the issue end and ‘A Second Chance to Die’ – a classy short thriller by Carl Wessler & Alcala.

Tales of the Zombie #8 (November) opens with a similar frontispiece feature by Isabella & Michael Kaluta ‘The Voodoo Killers’ before Gerber & Marcos return with ‘A Death Made of Ticky-Tacky’ as Garth and Layla finally reach New Orleans and fall foul of bored urban swingers seeking a different kind of good time. ‘Jimmy Doesn’t Live Here Anymore’ offers a chilling prose vignette from David Anthony Kraft, liberally illustrated by Kaluta.

‘Night of the Hunter’ by scripter Larry Lieber and artists Ron Wilson, Mike Esposito & Frank Giacoia sees a corrupt prison guard realise he’s tortured and killed the wrong black man, when the victim’s brother turns up straight from the sinister heart of Haiti…

‘Tales of the Happy Humfo’ is another Claremont voodoo article, spiced up with Kaluta drawings after which Alcala again closes show down with ‘Makao’s Vengeance’: a slick jungle chiller scripted by Kraft.

The first issue of 1975 opens with Isabella & Mortimer’s ‘Was He a Voodoo-Man?’, after which the author scripted stunning Zombie headliner ‘Simon Garth Lives Again!’, illustrated by Virgilio Redondo & Alcala, and Claremont & Yong Montano contribute second chapter ‘A Day in the Life of a Dead Man’ (Alcala inks) before Isabella & Marcos conclude the Garth extravaganza with ‘The Second Death Around’.

As an added bonus Moench & Alcala also designed a swampy slaughter-party in ‘Herbie the Liar Said it Wouldn’t Hurt!’…

Tales of the Zombie #10 (March 1975) leads with a Brother Voodoo tale by Moench & Tony DeZuñiga, wherein the Lord of the Loa struggles to prevent ‘The Resurrection of Papa Jambo’ because the scheduled Simon Garth saga had been lost in the post at time of printing). Bringing up the rear were medical nightmare ‘Eye For an Eye, Tooth For a Tooth’ by Conway, Virgilio Redondo & Rudy Nebres and Wessler, John Warner & Alcazar’s death-row chiller ‘Malaka’s Curse!’ with Sutton’s macabre ‘Grave Business’ the last seen treat…

By this time the horror boom was beginning to bust, and the advertised 11th issue never materialised. An all-reprint Tales of the Zombie Super-Annual was released that summer, with only its cover reproduced here.

Peppered with vivid Zombie pin-ups by Marcos & Sutton, and covers by Boris Vallejo and Earl Norem, this intriguing monochrome compendium – although a bit dated – contains what passed for Explicit Content in the mid-1970s, so although the frights should be nothing for today’s older kids, the occasional nipple or buttock might well send them screaming over the edge.

However, with appropriate mature supervision I’m sure this groovy gore-fest will delight many a brain-eating fright fan, until Marvel get around to properly reviving this tragic revenant’s roots and earliest recorded revels.
© 1973, 1974, 1975, 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Shaft: A Complicated Man


By David F. Walker, Bilquis Evely & various (Dynamite Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-60690-757-3 (TPB/Digital edition)

For decades Black consumers of popular entertainments had far too few fictive role models. For the English-speaking world that began changing in the turbulent 1960s and truly took hold during the decade that followed. A lot of the characters developed at that time came from a cultural phenomenon called “Blaxploitation” (other spellings are available). Despite being criticised for their seedy antecedents, stereotypical situations and violence, these films and books were the first mass-market examples of minority characters in leading roles, rather than as mere fodder or flunkies.

One of the earliest movie icons of the genre was a man called Shaft.

The landmark film was scripted by journalist and screenwriter Ernest Tidyman (The French Connection; High Plains Drifter) from his own 1970 novel. He authored six more between 1972 and 1975, with his timeless urban warrior starring in numerous films and a TV series. Eighth novel Shaft’s Revenge was released in 2016, written by David F. Walker.

Amongst his many gifts Walker numbers writing comics (Occupy Avengers; Cyborg; Red Sonja and many more) and in 2014 he was invited to write a long-overdue comics iteration… Illustrated by Bilquis Evely and coloured by Daniela & Miwa (Walker lettered the series himself), the comic book took its look, settings and tone primarily from the novels rather than the Richard Roundtree films. The first 6-chapter story-arc was collected as Shaft: A Complicated Man and offers some intriguing love overdue backstory. In all the detective’s prior appearances, no mention was made of his past, but here Big John gets a proper Origin…

Following an Introduction by educator and author Shawn Taylor, the saga – which won the 2015 Glyph Comics Award for Story of the Year – begins in December 1968. John Shaft is a former marine and veteran of the Vietnam war who’s come home and is trying to find his place in the world. An indomitable fighter, he’s using boxing as his big chance, but when he refuses to throw a fight, he incurs the wrath of both local black gang boss Junius Tate and the district’s mafioso overlord Sal Venneri.

Proud and resolute, but no fool, Shaft wins his bout, and accepts brutal punishment from Tate’s conflicted leg-breaker Bamma Brooks before vanishing from the cloistered island-within-an-island known as Harlem…

Just drifting, Shaft briefly goes to college before the call of adventure finds him joining private detective agency National Investigation & Security Services. His first job is as a plainclothes guard and “undercover negro shopper” at a fancy department store…

While on duty he meets pretty Arletha Havens and finds a reason to stop drifting and start planning. Before long, he’s seeing a bright future together.

That all goes to hell when thugs bust into their apartment looking for a hooker named Marisol Dupree and her pimp Jimmy Style…

With Arletha hostage, Shaft is forced to accompany one of the abductors back to Harlem for the first time in years, hunting the missing woman and a package she’s holding: something someone really important wants back. In fact, Marisol’s mystery treasure has big city money men in a panic and all the criminal factions in Harlem at each other’s throats, but Shaft’s immediate problem is simply staying alive…

After surviving a savage gunfight dropping five bodies in an alley, he returns home to find Arletha’s body and resolves that somebody – maybe everybody – is going to pay…

All on his own again, the coldly furious avenger finds his true calling, tracking down Marisol, methodically putting the pieces together in a chilling city-wide web of graft, favours, murder and money before ensuring the guilty parties pay the ultimate price…

Comprising a devious, byzantine wasps’ nest of civic corruption, crooked cops, warring mobsters and treacherous allies, played out against a tragic backdrop of true love forever lost, Shaft’s first case is a superb crime thriller no fan of the genre should miss and comes with a bevy of bonus features. These include character designs; unused illustrations by Walker & John Jennings; script excerpts; in-production art pages and a covers and variants gallery by Denys Cowan, Bill Sienkiewicz, Ivan Nunes, Francesco Francavilla, Michael Avon Oeming, Ulises Farinas, Matt Haley, Sanford Greene, Nacho Tenorio & Sergio Mora.

It even comes with a toe-tappingly cool playlist to track down and enjoy whilst reading…
Shaft is ™ & © 2015 Ernest Tidyman. All rights reserved.

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Darwin’s Diaries volume 1-3: The Eye of the Celts, Death of a Beast & Dual Nature


By Eduardo Ocaña & Sylvain Runberg, coloured by Tariq Bellaoui, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-095-5 (v1 Album PB/Digital edition), 978-1-84918-110-5 (v2 Album PB/Digital), 978-1-84918-144-0 (v3 Album PB/Digital)

In the eternal quest to be entertained, humans have always searched far and wide. The capacity and desire to scare ourselves thus employs a vast landscape of genres and locales as well of all time and space. It also tempts us into mixing and mashing history, imagination and fanciful speculation…

Here’s a fabulously fitting idea for fantastic Scientific Romance in the grand manner of Professor Challenger, courtesy of French writer Sylvain Runberg (Conquests; Watchdogs Legion; On Mars; Orbital) and Spanish illustrator Eduardo Ocaña (Messiah Complex, Full Tilt Boogie, Les Bâtisseurs): an enthralling triptych begun in 2010 which – despite slipping off everyone’s radar – has stood the test of time.

In England, Victoria is Queen, and her mighty nation will soon be an empire. It is, however, not at peace, and former explorer and controversial naturalist Charles Darwin is asked by Prime Minister Lord Palmerston to undertake a delicate mission in the North. It is not for his current field of expertise, but rather his early – and now – classified endeavours into the field of crypto-zoology. Not long ago, Darwin had quietly looked into the existence of mythical things: Almases, Sasquatch, Werewolves and other “clawed ones”…

The region he is despatched to is the site of railway construction, but recently the navvies, their horses and even a company of soldiers have been butchered by some beast. Darwin must go there and pacify the populace whilst ruling out any possibility that the culprit is of unknown origins…

The first minister also hints that as well as the lure of fresh knowledge, the savant should also consider that local entrepreneurial grandee Sir Howard Dickinson would be grateful enough to fund any future travels Darwin might be considering…

The scientist readily accepts – but not for the reasons expected – and is soon in York, met by forthright suffragist Suzanne Dickinson and Indian manservant Rajiv. Once ensconced in the Blue Moors hotel (her father’s latest acquisition), Darwin opens his investigation, with the suspiciously curious and hands-on Miss Dickinson always in attendance.

He finds her a superb companion. Highly educated and competent, she has been schooled in medicine and business is and acquainted with prestigious thinkers like John Stuart Mill and emancipators such as Emily Davies and Barbara Leigh Smith…

Upon examining the remains of the victims, Darwin stakes his reputation on the premise that a great tiger is loose in the wooded region. Neither his sponsors nor the striking navvies give that theory much credence, and that night, a shepherd and his dog are added to the death register. Locals begin voicing opinions that the culprits must be the weird Welsh cult led by self-professed holy man Cadell Afferson. He says he’s a druid in touch with ancient forces…

Meanwhile, Darwin’s gentlemanly facade seems to slip. When returned to the Blue Moor, he sinks into depravity, getting drunk, fighting with local bullies and availing himself of local harlot Louise Stuart. As he becomes a beast, the one he’s hunting attacks again, butchering soldiers, sabotaging the work site and apparently perishing in a massive explosion.

Suzanne is unable to refrain from commenting on the scientist’s condition when she fetches him next morning, but Darwin doesn’t care after hearing that military martinet Captain Sanders has recovered the creature’s corpse…

Originally published in 2010 as Les carnets de Darwin 1 – L’oeil des celtes, this period drama ripples with suppressed tension as it sets up a classic confrontation between man and monster to delight every thriller fan.

 

The suspense spectacularly escalates in second volume Death of a Beast (La mort d’une bête) as the press gets wind of the news that Mr. Darwin has discovered a creature previously unknown to science. Panic grips York, but rail construction recommences, thanks to the foreman’s unique methods of negotiation. As esteemed researcher and weary soldiers seek more evidence, Druid Cadell stirs the pot, warning that ancient gods will judge their actions…

Darwin believes his job nearly done, but as he dines with the Dickinsons, fresh tragedy sparks more bloodshed. When a little girl is found eviscerated, furious, terrified townsfolk turn on the druids and a brutal riot is only quashed by ruthless military intervention…

Far from that madding crowd, the scientist is amazed at his host’s familiarity with legends of shapeshifting creatures, and even more so by Suzanne’s other passion. She runs educational workshops for townswomen, teaching them to read and count and even honest trades. Her greatest joy is anticipating  the festival she and dowager Virginia Wilson have organised: Yorkshire’s first Feminist Convention…

Eventually Darwin and the soldiers are able to convince the citizens the child’s death is not due to a new beast or the Celts in the forest, but arrogant, affronted Afferson swears to take vengeance. He does possess some secret knowledge, but when he summons what really prowls the moors and forests, his mistaken belief that he is in control costs everyone dearly…

Meanwhile, in York, Darwin again gives in to his own beast and nearly dies due to it, but a horror has been roused to vicious action and whatever he truly is cannot hope to stand against it…

Blending socio-political intrigue with an immensely devious mystery where nothing is as it seems, this episode offers hints of far more at play and at stake than anyone previously suggested. Stay tuned for a big, big finish…

 

Closing chapter Dual Nature – formerly Les carnets de Darwin 3 – Double nature – moves from chilling canter to full galloping charge as fear and frenzy grip town and country, and mutilated bodies pile up. Captain Sanders informs Darwin that the investigation is done, and that Palmerston has decided the terror is the work of enemy agents set on destabilising the nation, and has sent further military personnel to mop up. Prudent and cautious, the PM has also despatched a renowned professional hunter, in case these sinister plotters instigators have indeed unleashed trained animals as part of their plan…

Sadly, effete dandy and aristocratic butcher Sir Rillons – and his entourage of privileged hangers-on – are merely the first to discover that what is actually loose is a pack of monstrous killers faster and stronger than any ever recorded before – and easily as smart as human beings…

In the aftermath of a bloody debacle, the drama reaches a messy crescendo as Darwin is abducted by the beasts and his own secret fully exposed. However, the ultra-macho monsters – distracted by and determined to crush the unnatural women demanding equal rights at their ridiculous convention – have not reckoned on uncanny hidden allies even the biologist himself is unaware that he has and ultimately, fang, claw and unnatural selection determines the outcome…

Murderous madcap mayhem and far from historically robust, this yarn is a crazily delicious feast of gory fun to charm every horror fan: a pure treat to gorge on and digest at your leisure.
© Editions du Lombard (Dargaud-Lombard SA) 2010 by Sylvain Runberg & Eduardo Ocaña. All rights reserved. English translation © 2011, 2012, 2013 Cinebook Ltd.

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Lydie


By Zidrou & Jordi Lafebre, translated by Mercedes Claire Gilliom (Europe Comics)
No ISBN: digital edition only

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Lyrical, Lovely, Unforgettable… 10/10

It’s the season for spirits and spectres and we all love a good, healthy scare, but it’s wise to remember that ghost stories aren’t just about revenge, unfinished business or unreasoning irrational terror. So often, what’s at play is feeling of duty and ineffable loss…

As you’d expect, our Continental cousins are exceeding adept at exploring humanity’s softer sides through the medium of comics, and Lydie is a masterclass in emotive, evocative, ruthlessly sensitive storytelling to delight our senses by quietly affirming our better natures.

Be warned though: this tale is funny, heartwarming and sad. No one (at least nobody even borderline human) will scoff or sneer if you need tissues to get you to the end.

Lydie was originally released in 2012, courtesy of empathetically enthralling scripter Zidrou (Benoît Drousie) and illustrator Jordi Lafebre. Drousie is Belgian, Brussels born in 1962 and until 1990 a school teacher – prior to quitting marking books to instead make them. His primary successes include school dunce series L’Elève Ducobu, Petit Dagobert, Scott Zombi, La Ribambelle, Le Montreur d’histoires, African Trilogy, Shi, Léonardo, a revived Ric Hochet and so many more. His most celebrated and beloved stories are the Les Beaux Étés sequence (translated by Europe Comics as Glorious Summers) – and this stand-alone saga. Both are illustrated by Spanish artist Jordi Lafebre.

The sublimely gifted illustrator and art teacher was born in Barcelona in 1979 and has been a comics professional since 2001 – initially for magazines like Mister K, where he limned Toni Font’s El Mundo de Judy. Lafebre found regular work at Le Journal de Spirou, creating the romance Always Never and collaborating with Zidrou on La vieille dame qui n’avait jamais joué au tennis et autres nouvelles qui font du bien, and La Mondaine.

Even for such gifted creators and in-tune collaborators, Lydie is something special: A combination of semi-tragic feel-good fable and genteel working class ghost story, this is a beguiling confection dealing out potent emotional punches one after another – so be braced with plenty of hankies. Nevertheless, it still manages to find the good and the laudable in us, even in the lowest moments and worst of aspects of our natures: enrobing what should be crushing tragedy in the uplifting actions of a community looking out for all of its members, no matter how flawed or forgotten they might become…

It starts sometime in the last century with a little enclave of an ordinary district in the kind of town that used to be everywhere. The crowded cul-de-sac of Baron Van Dick Court is a tiny, independent world of its own, where everyone knows everyone – and most of their personal business. However, since kids will be kids, when a little bit of mischief occurred, the place became irrevocably and foreverafter “Mustachioed Baby Court”…

The denizens live piled up on each other and are a typical bunch: hard-working, industrious, painfully practical and all eking out a living as best they can, but one night something rather extraordinary happens…

It truly started some time earlier. Down in the backyard, poor, hard-up Victor Lefort was again forced to destroy his cat’s beautiful kittens, even as upstairs Doctor “Fables” Fabian was failing to save a baby. Perhaps it was for the best. Distressed mother-to-be Camille Tirion is painfully simpleminded, and had been cruelly taken advantage of by some vile anonymous sinner, so what possibly life could her child have had?

Camille – and her poor father Augustin – were subject of much gossip in the local general store/bar. Despite being a train driver and often away overnight, he has done his best raising his afflicted daughter all on his own… at least until this…

Camille’s mother also died in childbirth and now cruel fate has struck the family again…

The event affects everyone in the Court and many parents must explain to their own children how – if not why – Camille’s baby has gone and must live in a tiny wooden box under the ground in the church graveyard…

However, once all the necessary ceremonies have taken place and life in the Court moves back towards normal, something happens. It begins when Augustin finds his bereft child crumpled under the little statue of the Madonna that’s been overlooking the court for who knows how long, and continues the next day when Camille dashes joyously into the store, ecstatically telling all inside that her baby has come back.

Of course, little Lydie is invisible now…

Her joy is infectious, and no one wants to disabuse the poor simpleton of her fanciful notion, but things take a stranger turn after the feral and prolific delinquent Ayhard brothers brutally tease the “new mother “and her swaddled, intangible infant. When aged Madame Paris helps distraught Camille comfort the latest addition to the Court, the community rallies around, and before long even the most curmudgeonly dweller in Mustachioed Baby Court is playing along: from crusty shopkeeper Théophile Lefort to acid-tongued sot Madame Malisse. The priest is even cajoled into performing a special baptism for the unseen infant…

…And gradually, with everyone contributing to the fantastic lie for decades, it all seems to come fantastically true…

From this point on, the story takes on a life of its own too, so please for the sake of soul and all the lost joy modern life has stripped from you, find and read this glorious fable dedicated to the miraculous strength of imagination, power of love and irresistible force of humanity united in a grand cause…
© 2018 DARGAUD BENELUX (Dargaud-Lombard s.a.) – Jordi Lafebre and Zidrou. All rights reserved.

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Black Lightning volume 1


By Tony Isabella, Denny O’Neil, Trevor Von Eeden, Mike Netzer, Frank Springer, Vince Colletta & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-6071-2 (TPB/Digital edition)

Black Lightning was far from the first superhero of colour, but his mutability, iconic image and sheer tenacity have made him one of the most enduring and widely travelled. He’s been everything from outraged lone street vigilante to teacher; Presidential Secretary to perfect team player (on a succession of super-groups); sporting legend, family man and world-saving wise mentor. He’s even made the turbulent transition to star of his own television series…

Very little of that was apparent when these groundbreaking adventures were first released. Back then, the simple fact that an African-American masked hero was considered sales-worthy was the biggest leap imaginable…

Excluding a few returning characters in jungle-themed comic of the 1940s and 1950s, War comics first opened the door to black characters in the early 1960s, when Robert Kanigher & Joe Kubert created negro boxer Jackie Johnson as a stalwart of Sgt. Rock’s Easy Company in Our Army at War #113 (cover-dated December 1961).

Marvel followed suit with a black soldier in Sgt. Fury’s Howling Commandos (Gabe Jones, debuting in #1, May 1963), and pulled far ahead in the diversity stakes after introducing America’s first negro superheroes. The Black Panther premiered in Fantastic Four #52, (July 1966) and The Falcon first flew in Captain America #117 (September 1969). Luke Cage became the Hero for Hire in the spring of 1972, carrying a June cover-date…

The honour of being the nation’s first black hero to carry in his own title had already come and gone via a little-remembered (or regarded) title from Dell Comics. Created by artist Tony Tallarico & scripter D.J. Arneson, gunslinger Lobo was a vigilante of the wild west who sought out injustice just like any cowboy hero would. He first appeared in December 1965, with his second and final issue cover-dated October 1966…

Gradually, more ethnic lead characters appeared, with DC finally getting a black-skinned hero in John Stewart (Green Lantern #87, December 1971/January 1972), although his designation as a “replacement” GL might be construed as more conciliatory and insulting than revolutionary. By then, Jack Kirby had introduced teen New God Vykin the Black in Forever People #1 (March 1971) and later created enterprising “ghetto kid” Shilo Norman as a hero’s apprentice and eventual successor in Mister Miracle ##15 (August, 1973). DC’s first superhero to have his own solo title didn’t debut until 1977…

This astoundingly accessible, no-nonsense collection – comprising Black Lightning #1-11, material from Cancelled Comics Cavalcade #1 and World’s Finest Comics #260, spans April 1977 to January 1980) and bolts into action following a forthright and informative Introduction by originator Tony Isabella.

It begins as ‘Black Lightning’ (illustrated by neophyte penciller Trevor Von Eeden & veteran inker Frank Springer) sees former Olympic decathlete Jefferson Pierce return to the streets of Suicide Slum, Metropolis to teach at beleaguered inner city Garfield High School. Pierce is determined to make a difference to the troubled kids he used to be numbered amongst, but when the educator interrupts a drug buy on school grounds and sends the dealer packing, the door is opened to vengeance and tragedy…

When the mob – a crime syndicate dubbed The 100 – seek retaliation, one of Pierce’s students pays the ultimate price and the teacher realises he needs the shield of anonymity if he is to win justice and safety for his beleaguered home and charges…

Happily, tailor Peter Gambi – who sheltered Jefferson and his grieving mother after the elder Pierce was murdered – has some useful ideas and inexplicable access to pretty far-out technology…

Equipped with a strength-&-speed enhancing forcefield belt, gaudy costume, a and mask/wig unit completely changing his appearance, a fierce vigilante stalks the streets of Metropolis…

The local chapter of The 100 is run by monstrous, cunning freak Tobias Whale and once the assaults on his soldiers starts biting into profits and offer the downtrodden populace a glimmer of hope, he starts ruthless retaliation.

The sinister strategist lays many traps, culminating in hiring a lethal super-assassin who previously faced Green Arrow and the Justice League of America.

When the killer pounces, Pierce is forced into uneasy alliance with mystery woman Talia Al Ghul, but it ends as soon as bodies start piling up all over the school gym in ‘Merlyn Means Murder’…

Vince Colletta assumes the inker’s role as Black Lightning’s continued war against The 100 forces “the Whale” to fight smart, and Metro Police – led by doughty Inspector William Henderson – pursue the vigilante as vigorously as any gangster or felon. Taking seedy stoolie Two Bits Tanner into his confidence, Pierce savagely works his way up the criminal chain of command.

He eventually confronts Tobias in his inner sanctum only to find ‘Every Hand Against Him.’ As the police pounce, paranoia grips Pierce and he begins mistrusting his small team. Has someone he trusts betrayed him?

A more palatable answer seems apparent in #4 as suspicion falls on Tanner’s source – Daily Planet journalist Jimmy Olsen. When the outraged street fighter tries to force a confession from the baffled cub reporter, they are attacked by the 100’s latest super heavy in ‘Beware the Cyclotronic Man’…

Jimmy is wounded when they unite to fight off the atomic villain, and Black Lightning is suddenly confronted by the kid’s enraged and late-arriving best pal, who immediately jumps to the wrong conclusion and quickly shows why ‘Nobody Beats a Superman!’

In fact, had Cyclotron not switched attention to the true target Tobias wanted him to kill, everyone might have died, but the heroes’ misunderstandings are all forgotten when Black Lightning saves the Man of Tomorrow from nuclear meltdown, beats the bad guys and uncovers a mole in the police force…

Patience exhausted and under pressure from his own bosses, the Whale declares open season, placing an astounding bounty on Black Lightning. When deeply conflicted manhunter Syonide (and his hilarious, Marvel-baiting in-joke kung fu assistants) stalk the Saviour of Suicide Slum, their first move is to shadow and learn everything about their quarry.

When Gambi is abducted, Jefferson’s secret is finally exposed in ‘One Man’s Poison’, Syonide – afflicted with a bizarre sense of honour – hands over a helpless Black Lightning to the Whale in #7. However he cannot escape ‘The Conscience of the Killer’ and is compelled to shelter the captive tailor from the 100’s vengeance before voluntarily paying the ultimate price when ordered to kill the apparently-helpless masked hero…

Tragically, even as Black Lightning undergoes a miraculous transformation and takes out the gathered crooks and villains, he loses another innocent to the violent life he has embraced…

With the power of the 100 seemingly broken and Tobias Whale in custody, Pierce’s war should be over, but the gigantic gangster quickly breaks free and takes hostages from Police HQ.

Determined to end the vendetta, Black Lightning tracks him down for one last duel and in the ‘Deadly Aftermath’ finds the renewed purpose to carry on his alternate lifestyle…

Now considering himself more hero than avenger, Pierce experiences ‘Fear and Loathing at Garfield High’ when his school is invaded by a maniac terrorist operating an army of robotic killers, after which a circus trip exposes ‘The Other Black Lightning’. Sadly, although this well-meaning admirer is a mostly-harmless copycat, jewel thieves and former Flash foe The Trickster provide plenty of genuine danger and menace before the big top sawdust settles…

Comics were experiencing another general sales downturn at this time, and just as Denny O’Neil took over scripting Black Lightning, it was cancelled with #11 (October 1978).

‘All They Will Call You Will Be… Deportee!’ offered hints of a new direction with the urban avenger exposing a people-trafficking ring luring South American refugees into slave jobs at a fast food chain, but for most readers that was the last sight of the hero for some time.

So abrupt was the cancellation, that for legal reasons and to secure copyrights, DC had to put out black-&-white ashcan anthology Cancelled Comics Cavalcade, printing completed but unpublished stories of Claw the Unconquered, The Deserter, The Green Team, Madame Xanadu, Firestorm and others. Also included was Black Lightning #12…

The wider world got to see that last adventure – ‘Lure of the Magnetic Menace’ by O’Neil, Mike Nasser (nee Netzer) & Colletta – a year later when the January 1980 cover-dated World’s Finest Comics #260 ran the story as a prelude to a new series of BL adventures.

This edgy yarn details how the shocking hero is attacked by costumed crazy Doctor Polaris after Jefferson Pierce investigates a possible case of child neglect and abuse involving one of his more troubled students…

Wrapping up this initial outing is a copious selection of working drawings from the ‘Black Lightning Sketchbook’ by Von Eeden, and Mike Netzer’s unfinished cover for never-seen issue #13.

Although closely interlinked to then-current DC continuity, these fast-paced Fights ‘n’ Tights thrillers are so skilfully constructed that even the freshest neophyte can settle in for the ride without any confusion and enjoy a self-contained rollicking rollercoaster of terrifically traditional superhero shenanigans.

So, go do that then…
© 1977, 1978, 1979, 2016 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Captain America – Truth


By Robert Morales, Kyle Baker & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-3427-9 (TPB/Digital Edition) 978-0785136668 (Premiere HB)

It’s never been more apparent than these days, but Truth is a Weapon. Facts, events and especially interpretations have always been manipulated to further a cause, and that simple premise was the basis of one of the most groundbreaking and controversial comic book stories of all time…

Created by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby in an era of frantic patriotic fervour, Captain America was a dynamic and highly visible response to the horrors of Nazism and the threat of Liberty’s loss. Consequently, the concept quickly lost focus and popularity after hostilities ceased. Fading away during post-war reconstruction, only to briefly reappear after the Korean War: a harder, darker sentinel ferreting out monsters, subversives and the “Reds” who lurked under every American bed.

He abruptly vanished once more, until the burgeoning Marvel Age resurrected him just in time to experience the Land of the Free’s most turbulent and culturally divisive era. Cap quickly became a mainstay of the Marvel Revolution during the Swinging Sixties, but lost his way after that, except for a politically-charged period under scripter Steve Englehart.

Despite everything, Captain America became a powerful symbol for generations of readers and his career can’t help but reflect that of the nation he stands for…

Devised in the Autumn and on newsstand by December 20th 1940, Captain America Comics #1 was cover-dated March 1941 and an instant monster, blockbuster smash-hit. The Sentinel of Liberty had boldly and bombastically launched in his own monthly title with none of the publisher’s customary caution, and instantly became the absolute and undisputed star of Timely’s top-selling “Big Three” – the other two being The Human Torch and Sub-Mariner. He was, however, one of the first to fall from popularity as the Golden Age ended.

For all that initial run, his exploits were tinged – or maybe “tainted” – by the sheer exuberant venom of appalling racial stereotyping and heady fervour of jingoism at a time when America was involved in the greatest war in world history. Nevertheless, the first 10 issues of Captain America Comics are the most exceptional comics in the fledgling company’s history…

You know the origin story as if it were your own. In ‘Meet Captain America’ Simon & Kirby revealed how scrawny, enfeebled patriot and genuinely Good Man Steven Rogers, after being continually rejected by the US Army, is recruited by the Secret Service.

Desperate to stop Nazi-sympathizing atrocity, espionage and sabotage, the passionate teen accepts the chance to become part of a clandestine experimental effort to create physically perfect super-soldiers. However, after a Nazi agent infiltrates the project and murders the pioneering scientist behind it, Rogers is left as the only successful graduate and becomes America’s not-so-secret weapon.

For decades the story has been massaged and refined, yet remained essentially intact, but in 2002 – in the wake of numerous real-world political and social scandals (like the Tuskegee Experiment/Tuskegee Syphilis Study 1932-1972) – writer Robert Morales (Vibe Magazine, Captain America) & Kyle Baker (Nat Turner, Plastic Man, The Shadow, Why I Hate Saturn) took a cynical second look at the legend through the lens of the treatment of and white attitudes towards black American citizens…

The result was Truth: Red, White & Black #1-7 (January-July 2003), initially collected as a Premiere Hardcover edition in 2009 and here in trade paperback and digital formats. This hard-hitting view of the other side of a Marvel Universe foundational myth forever changed the shape of the continuity: using the tragedy and inherent injustice of the situation to add to the pantheon more – and more challenging – heroes of colour and contemporary role models.

‘The Future’ begins at “Negro Week” of the 1940 New York World’s Fair where Isaiah Bradley and his bride Faith learn yet again they are still second class citizens, and that their rights and freedoms are conditional. December in Philadelphia sees young firebrand and workers’ rights activist Maurice Canfield painfully realise that even his father’s hard-earned wealth and position mean nothing as long as their skin is dark in America…

Cleveland in June of 1941 and negro war veteran “Black Cap” is still in the army. It’s fiercely segregated and he’s been demoted to sergeant, but Luke Evans is content to have work and purpose. Since returning from the Great War, Evans has lived through so much crap – even a year of race riots and near-revolution that threatened to wipe out his kind – that he’s content to take each day as it comes.

Everything changes for these black men and thousands like them when the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor on December 7th 1941…

‘The Basics’ opens in 1942 at Camp Cathcart, Mississippi. The base is tense, and strife between partitioned white and black recruits at a perilous boiling point. Brawling between races is constant. Into the explosive situation comes oily G-Man Homer Tully and scientist Dr. Josef Reinstein who petition openly racist commander Major Brackett to give them two battalions of coloured recruits and cover up the fact that they ever existed…

Wartime secrecy is then employed to mask an appalling act of racist cynicism, as hundreds of patriotic black men are trained and callously discarded as Reinstein methodically perfects his super-soldier serum on expendable lower race guinea pigs.

The scene switches to Project Super Soldier (location classified) where Colonel Walker Price supervises ‘The Passage’ of the survivors from human to something else. Bradley, Canfield, Evans and the others have endured a cruel barrage of chemical interventions. Of three hundred, only a handful survive, and all are radically changed… or, more accurately, mutated. Reinstein is acutely aware that his former colleagues in Nazi Germany are just as close to solving the riddle of superhumanity and pushes on with increasing disregard for the laws of science or ethics of civilisation…

Next of kin are informed that their loved ones have been killed in training, but Faith Bradley knows the corpse in the casket is not her man and starts making waves…

Ultimately, military pragmatism supersedes scientific caution and the seven remaining negros – all immensely powerful in radically changed bodies – are pressed into action as an expendable super-suicide squad. Commanded by white supremacist Lieutenant Philip Merritt, ‘The Cut’ sees them deployed to the Black Forest with orders to destroy the rival Uber-mensch project. The mission catastrophically fails, but survivor Isaiah Bradley is coerced by Walker Price into returning to Germany on a solo suicide mission to eradicate the facility. Apparently, the “real” Captain America is unable to get there in time…

Rebellious to the end, Bradley complies, but steals and dons the flashy star-spangled uniform worn by the public – blue-eyed, blonde and exceeding white – face of America’s Super Soldier Project. It’s October 1942 and the last time the world hears from or about Bradley…

The horrors he saw and his spectacular triumph only start emerging in ‘The Math’ as – today in the Bronx – superhero Steve Rogers meets Bradley’s widow and discovers something truly astounding…

Whilst crushing domestic terrorism, Captain America had captured unrepentant mastermind Merritt and learned how the monster had been instrumental in Reinstein’s death decades previously. Further investigation uncovered ‘The Whitewash’ Merritt and his superior Walker Price instigated, and what they perpetrated after Bradley unexpectedly battled his way back to America…

Stunned to have unearthed a secret history of oppression and immorality that occurred all around him without his slightest inkling, Rogers is distraught and furious, resolved to set things right at all costs…

That mission takes him to the highest echelons of government and darkest corners of military intelligence in ‘The Blackvine’, where he learns more uncomfortable truths about his origins and the true nature of the country he loves and represents. Shellshocked and despondent, Cap returns to the Bradley’s home and gets a welcome if belated chance to salve his soul, set history straight and repay moral debts unknowingly incurred in his name…

With covers by Baker, promo art by Joe Quesada, Danny Miki & Richard Isanove, and unused cover treatments, this landmark saga is backed up with a context-laden, disturbingly informative Appendix by Robert Morales: clarifying and expanding on many previously sidelined moments of actual and black history that informed the story.

Powerful, engaging, enlightening and immensely gratifying, this is a story to enrage and enthral, and one no socially aware superfan should miss.
© 2022 MARVEL.