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The Steel Claw: Reign of the Brain!


By Tom Tully, Jesús Blasco & various (Rebellion)
ISBN: 978-1-78108-681-2 (TPB/Digital Edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Vivid Visions of Wonderful Weirdness… 9/10

One of the most fondly-remembered British strips of all time is the startlingly beautiful Steel Claw. From 1962 to 1973, the stunningly gifted Jesús Blasco and his small studio of family members thrilled the nation’s children, illustrating the angst-filled adventures of scientist, adventurer, secret agent and even costumed superhero Louis Crandell.

The majority of the character’s career was scripted by prolific and versatile comics veteran Tom Tully (Roy of the Rovers, Heros the Spartan, Dan Dare, House of Dolmann, Master of the Marsh, Janus Stark, Mytek the Mighty, The Wild Wonders, Nipper, Adam Eterno, The Mind of Wolfie Smith, Johnny Red, Harlem Heroes, Mean Arena, Inferno, The Robo Machines, Football Family Robinson, Buster’s Ghost and many more).

He followed the precepts of H.G. Wells’ original unseen adversary which had been laid out by science fiction novelist Ken Bulmer who had devised the strip, presenting some modern spin on Victorian classic The Invisible Man.

In the 1960s, however, our protagonist acted with evil intent as soon as he fell out of sight of his fellow humans, not through innate poor character but because of wild technology accidentally unleashed …

Another stunning salvo of graphic wonderment from Rebellion’s Treasury of British Comics strand, this second collection is available in paperback and digital editions. The Steel Claw: The Reign of the Brain gathers material from timeless weekly anthology Valiant, spanning 28th September 1963 to 19th September 1964 and is accompanied by an Introduction from writer and editor John Freeman (treat yourself to his downthetubes.net site for all your nostalgia and comics needs!)

What has gone before: Louis Crandell was an embittered man, probably due to having lost his right hand in a lab accident. After his recovery and its replacement with a steel prosthetic, he returned to work as (a rather surly) assistant to venerable boffin Professor Barringer, who was attempting to create a germ-destroying ray.

When that device exploded, Crandell received a monumental electric shock and was bathed in radiation from the ray-device. Rather than killing him, the incident rendered him totally transparent and changed his body chemistry. Although he couldn’t stay unseen forever, the bodily mutation permanently affected him, and subsequent electric shocks caused all but his metal hand to disappear.

These were simpler times and there was far less SCIENCE around so please – Kids Of All Ages – do not try this at home!

Whether venal at heart or temporarily deranged, Crandell went on a rampage of terror, even attempting to blow up New York City before finally coming to his senses. Throughout Crandell’s outrages, guilt-fuelled Barringer was in pursuit, resolved to save or stop his former friend…

After his cure, the invisible man was so globally notorious and well known that he was framed by his own therapist. Whilst treating Crandell Dr. Deutz was also traumatically exposed to Barringer’s ray but instead of invisibility, he gained the power to transform into a bestial ape-man and turned to crime for fun. He malevolently placed the blame for his own spectacular robberies and assaults on his infamous patient…

On the run but innocent this time, Crandell was saved by the intervention of Barringer’s niece Terry Gray. After weeks of beast-triggered catastrophe and panic in the streets, the Steel Claw was vindicated and proved himself a hero. Despite that, a quiet life was clearly beyond the unseen celebrity, and while seeking anonymity in the Bahamas, he was embroiled in a modern-day pirate’s attempt to hijack an undersea super-weapon and plunder cruise ships…

With this volume, Crandell continues his gradually shift from victim to reluctant hero: accepting his powers and an elite if danger-ridden role at the fringe of society. During the first saga reprinted here, he made a decision that would affect the rest of his life.

Taking stock at a time when super-spies and science fiction were globally ascendent, Tully began with Crandell still courting obscurity. Building a life in San Lemo, capital of South American republic Curacos, Crandell is again recognised and chased by sensation-hungry mobs. The frantic pursuit drives him to a power station where someone takes a shot at him, and he is given a message by a dying man. The victim warns of the end of the world and gives Crandell a phone number, but the real convincer that it’s all deadly serious is the assassin with an electric raygun who starts shooting at him…

Caught up in a sea of lethal intrigue, the Steel Claw falls into an ongoing operation by British Intelligence group “Shadow Squad” and becomes point man in their investigation of a deranged super-genius dubbed ‘The Brain’ (running from 28th September 1963 – 4th April 11th 1964).

Amidst an increasing tide of man-made disasters and thanks to his uncanny gifts, angry determination and sheer dumb luck, Crandell infiltrates the Brain’s cult, invading his booby-trapped tropical island and exposing a scheme to destroy all life on Earth.

Anticipating our modern era’s huge surplus of spoiled, homely, insecure, self-confessed billionaire man-children petulantly making trouble, this duel of wills leads to global unrest and devastation, culminating in a spectacular war of Inventions against Invisibility & Ingenuity. In the end the Claw ultimately emerges – far from unscathed but at least alive – ready for more adventure…

The mission had already paid off big for Crandell: the first thing Shadow Squad did was to fake his death and proclaim that the Steel Claw was gone forever…

As ever, the series is made unmissable by the astounding art of Blasco – although the master is supplanted for a few episodes in the first story by fill-in artists who might or might not be Eric Bradbury & Mike Western…

The Claw’s clash of powers against the Brain is protracted, suspenseful, action-packed and in the end a close-run thing, but inevitably results in victory for the reluctant good guy who becomes a very special agent of the Shadow Squad and an operative of British Intelligence. Those connections next lead him into a secret war on home soil, as he faces the uncanny, barely-perceived threat of ‘The Lactians’ (11th April – 19th September 1964)…

The tense drama opens with our eventual hero back in London. Britain is reeling under twin crises: a plague of fireballs in the night sky over Cornwall and a rising toll of missing persons, and as Crandell rendezvous with his handler, they are ambushed by what appear to be ordinary citizens with bizarre intentions…

When “Shadow Five” dies, Crandell’s frantic fightback exposes the attackers as not of this world: sparking a one-man war against an alien race able to possess bodies and attempting to infiltrate and subjugate mankind via its isolated rural communities – a classic theme of cold war science fiction of the era.

Even with other artists again stepping in to counter the problems of weekly deadlines and international postal deliveries in a pre-digital age, the tenson and terror never relent as the Invisible Man slowly works his way through an all-but indetectable army of enemies to the thing at the top: risking everything on one final desperate counterstrike…

This potent thriller tome also comes with a teaser excerpt from the forthcoming Steel Claw Super Picture Library collection, again highlighting the work of Tully & Blasco…

More than any other comics character, the Steel Claw was a barometer for reading fashions. Starting out as a Quatermass-style science fiction cautionary tale, the strip mimicked the trends of the greater world, evolving into a James Bond-style super-spy strip – with Crandell eventually tricked out with outrageous gadgets – and latterly, even a masked and costumed super-doer after TV-triggered “Batmania” gripped the nation and the world.

When that bubble burst, he resorted to becoming a freelance adventurer, combating eerie menaces and vicious criminals.

The thrills of the writing are engrossing enough, but the real star of this feature is the artwork: captivating classicist drawing, moody staging and the sheer pristine beauty of all participants making this an absolute pleasure to look at.

Jesús Monterde Blasco was born in Barcelona in 1919 and began his phenomenal career in 1935, drawing for Mickey magazine. Barely known now in the English-speaking world, his vastly varied output included Cuto, Anita Diminuta, Los Tres Inseperables, Los Guerilleros, Paul Foran, Tom Berry, Tex Willer, Tallafero, Capitán Trueno and Une Bible en Bande Dessinée for continental and South American audiences. His many UK strips include the lush and lavish Buffalo Bill, sci-fi chiller The Indestructible Man, Billy the Kid and the first Invasion! serial (2000 AD from #1, 1977). He died in October 1995.

This is sheer addictive nostalgia for my generation, but the stories also hold up against anything made for today’s marketplace. Buy it for the kids and read it too; this is a glorious book, and steel yourself for even better yet to come…
© 1963, 1964 & 2022 Rebellion Publishing IP Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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Black Panther: Visions of Wakanda


By Jess Harrold, Rodolfo Muraguchi & Adam Del Re with Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, Roy Thomas & John Buscema, Don McGregor, Rick Buckler, Billy Graham & Gene Colan, Ta-Nehisi Coates & Brian Stelfreeze and many & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1302919382 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Categorically Picture Perfect… 9/10

Celebrated as the first black superhero in American comics and one of the first to carry his own series, the Black Panther’s popularity and fortunes have waxed and waned since the 1960s when he first attacked the FF (in Fantastic Four #52; cover-dated July 1966) as part of an elaborate plan to gain vengeance on the murderer of his father.

T’Challa, son of T’Chaka was revealed as an African monarch whose hidden kingdom was the only source of a vibration-absorbing alien metal upon which the nation’s immense wealth was founded. Those mineral riches – derived from a fallen meteor which struck the continent in primeval antiquity – had powered his country’s transformation into a technological wonderland. That tribal wealth had long been guarded by a hereditary feline-garbed champion deriving physical advantages from secret ceremonies and a mysterious heart-shaped herb that ensured the generational dominance of the nation’s warrior Panther Cult.

After being a steadfast if minor Marvel stalwart for decades, the character and his world finally achieved global stardom thanks to a series of stunning movie interpretations and is now an assured icon of planetary consciousness…

With accumulated years of superb comics material to fall back on, the company would be crazy not to use that in reprints and overviews like this one: creating a resource for new fans to consult and veterans to relish again.

They’re not crazy and this spiffy landscape edition – written by Jess Harrold and designed by Rodolfo Muraguchi & Adam Del Re – came out a couple of years ago. With a sequel in cinemas and the Holiday Season looming, it’s only sensible to point you in this direction if you’re seeking gift suggestions…

Following Introduction ‘Dear Brian…’ by 1990s scripter Christopher J. Priest, what follows is a series of informative, contextualising – but accessibly fun – essays, dotted with candid behind-the-scenes illustrations (like Kirby’s original concept of “The Coal Tiger”), quotes from contributing creators and artwork from classic issues and storylines: tracing the entire career of the Hero/Heroes who have steered Wakanda through Marvel Comics history…

It starts with Chapter One and ‘Enter… The Black Panther!’, with the aforementioned debut and early days supplemented by printed pages, and original art by Kirby & inker Joe Sinnott, highlighting not just the man but especially the astonishingly futuristic kingdom he ruled. As well as origins, there are introductions to concepts and villains who would shape the destinies of the characters and country…

After treading the guest star route, T’Challa got his first regular gig as Captain America’s replacement on the World’s Mightiest Supergroup. ‘Avengers Assemble!’ reprises those walk-ons and traces the solitary hunter’s career as part of a team, with excerpted art and covers from Kirby, John Buscema, Frank Giacoia, Sal Buscema, Rich Buckler, George Tuska, John Romita Sr., Arthur Adams, Marcos Stein and Phil Noto.

‘Panther’s Rage’ reveals how the King faced an existential threat in his homeland as, after policing the Marvel Universe, the summer of 1973 saw the Black Panther finally advance to solo star in his own series. In Jungle Action #6-18, Don McGregor scripted an ambitious epic of love, death, vengeance and civil war: inventing from whole cloth and Kirby’s throwaway notion of a futuristic jungle, the most unique African nation ever imagined…

With art from Rich Buckler, Klaus Janson and Billy Graham, the chapter highlights the unique structure and page design of what is arguably one of comics’ earliest graphic novels. Also provided are the first maps of Wakanda and hits of McGregor’s follow-up tale.

The Panther versus the Klan shifted focus from war stories to crime fiction, replacing exotic Africa for America’s poverty-wracked, troubled, still segregated-in-all-but-name Deep South for a head-on collision with centuries of entrenched and endemic racism. The multi-layered tale ended but did not conclude as Jungle Action was cancelled before its time…

Two months later, under the auspices of returning creative colossus Jack Kirby, a wholly different kind of Black Panther enjoying utterly unrelated adventures was launched, and ‘The Return of the King’ celebrates a new era of excitement.

Kirby’s return proved to be controversial. He was never slavishly wedded to tight continuity and preferred, in many ways, to treat his stints on titles as a “Day One”. His commitment was to wholesome, eye-popping adventure, breakneck action and breathless, mind-boggling wonderment. Combined with his absolute mastery of the comic page and unceasing quest for the Next Big Thrill, it made for a captivating read, but found little favour with those readers fully committed to the minutiae of the Marvel Universe.

With Black Panther #1, what they got was a rollercoaster ride of classic Kirby concept-overload as the Hereditary King of a miraculous Lost Kingdom gallantly pursued fabulous time machines, fought future men and secret samurai clans, thwarted the plots of super-rich artefact stealers and foiled schemes to nuke his hidden homeland, usurp his rule and even consume his faithful subjects. Kirby even introduced an entire, unsuspected extended Royal Family: a Panther clan who would become an intrinsic part of the new mythology.

All this is dynamically revealed in a wave of wonder from Kirby before ‘Where Prowls the Panther?’ explores the 1980s – and a relative dry spell for the hero. Primarily back as a guest star, T’Challa nevertheless completed the “The Klan” saga, revealed a childhood adventure with Storm of the X-Men and closed the decade with a politically-charged miniseries confronting Apartheid. Art contributors here include Jerry Bingham, Al Milgrom, John Byrne, Bob McLeod, Walter Simonson, Steve Rude and Denys Cowan.

Chapter Six examines ‘Panther’s Quest… Panther’s Prey’ when, – as the 1990s began – South Africa’s morally bankrupt ruling system was buckling and became an acceptable target in many creative fields. McGregor returned after years away from the comics mainstream, and with artists Gee Colan & Tom Palmer, spun a shocking tale of intolerance as an epic serial in 25 chapters (published in fortnightly anthology Marvel Comics Presents #13-37, from February to December1989).

One of the most thought-provoking mainstream comics tales ever released, Panther’s Quest reveals how T’Challa infiltrated totalitarian South Africa in search of Ramonda, the beloved stepmother he had believed dead for decades. His hunt for her uncovered conspiracy and abduction, whilst placing him at the forefront of the battle for survival daily endured by the black majority. The saga added pressure to the ever-growing Anti-Apartheid movement in comics and western media, by examining not only the condition of racial inequality but also turning a damning eye on sexual oppression.

It was followed by prestige Limited Series Panther’s Prey, set in Wakanda and again examining the dichotomy of tradition versus progress that had underpinned Panther’s Rage. McGregor’s chilling script was transformed by the art of Dwayne Turner, as seen here in numerous pages and covers from the series, counterpointed by excepts from 2018’s reprise of the tale illustrated by Daniel Acuña from Black Panther Annual #1.

As seen in ‘The Marvel Knight’, T’Challa’s story took a huge leap when Christopher Priest utterly revamped and modernised the hero – and Wakanda – in an epically transformational run. How and why is supported by sketches, designs, finished art and covers by Mark Texiera, Joe Quesada, Joe Jusko, Mike Manley, Sal Velluto, Norm Breyfogle, Andy Kubert, Jim Calafiore, Kyle Hotz, Tomm Coker. Bruce Timm and more.

Screenwriter Reginald Hudlin’s tenure is covered next with ‘Who is the Black Panther?’ as the king takes a wife and full charge of his country in truly perilous circumstances, just as the secret history of Wakanda is revealed at last…

This epic period of change and revelation was supported by many artists and included here are John Romita Jr., Janson, Esad Ribi?, Fran Cho, David Yardin, Scot Eaton, Olivier Coipel, Leinil Francis Yu, Michael Turner, Joseph Michael Linsner, Trevor Hairsine, Mike Deodato Jr., Gary Frank, Nico Henrichon, Simone Bianchi, Arthur Suydam, Cafu, Alan Davis, Francis Portela, Jason Pearson, Jefté Palo and Denys Cowan.

Tribal wealth had always been guarded by hereditary feline champions deriving physical advantages from secret ceremonies and a mysterious heart-shaped herb. This ensured the generational dominance of Wakanda’s warrior Panther Cult. However, in recent years, Vibranium made the country a target for increasing subversion and incursion. After clashes with Namor the Sub-Mariner and an attack by Doctor Doom, T’Challa was forced to render all earthly Vibranium inert, defeating the invader but leaving his homeland broken and economically shattered.

During that cataclysmic clash, the King’s flighty, spoiled brat half-sister Shuri took on the mantle of Black Panther, becoming clan and country’s new champion whilst her predecessor struggled with the disaster he had caused and also recuperated from near-fatal injuries.

Despite initially being rejected by the divine Panther Spirit, Shuri proved a dedicated and ingenious protector, serving with honour until she perished defending Wakanda from alien invader Thanos. When T’Challa resumed his position as warrior-king, one of his earliest tasks was resurrecting his sister. She had passed into the Djalia (Wakanda’s spiritual Plane of Memories) where she absorbed the entire history of the nation from ascended Elders. On her return to physicality, she gained mighty new powers as the Ascended Future…

That’s addressed in rapid succession via ‘Shuri… the Black Panther!’, ‘The Most Dangerous Man Alive!’ and ‘King of the Dead’ – with art from J. Scott Campbell, Ken Lashley, Paul Neary, Paul Renaud, Will Conrad, Romita Jr., Mike Del Mundo, Francesco Francavilla, Simone Bianchi, Andrea Silvestri, Patch Zircher, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Alex Maleev, Adam Kubert, Tom Raney, Steve Epting, Deodato Jr., Jim Cheung, Christian Ward, Valerio Schiti, Kev Walker, Esad Ribi? and Kenneth Rocafort – before ‘A Nation Under Our Feet’ shows how writer Ta-Nehisi Coates and artists Brian Stelfreeze imagined the concept.

That 2016 reinvention again tackled revolution in Wakanda, but also addressed democracy versus autocracy, science against magic, women’s rights, freedom of education and body autonomy whilst telling astounding powerful heroic tales. Stelfeeze’s art and designs are augmented by art and commentary from Chris Sprouse, Wilfredo Torres, Leonard Kirk, Paolo & Joe Rivers and Janie McKelvie & Matthew Wilson.

The series sparked a renaissance and flurry of spin-off titles and ‘The World of Wakanda’

examines that expanded universe, and utilises art by Alitha E. Martinez, Stelfreeze, Jen Bartel, John Cassaday, Butch Guice, Sprouse, Juan Ferreya, Ed McGuiness, Davis, Deodato Jr., Sam Spratt, Leonardo Romero and Kirbi Fagan.

The Panther’s tale pauses here with Coates final storyline ‘The Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda’ as T’Challa abandoned Earth to investigate a vast cosmic tyranny somehow based on his beloved country: a mystery gradually unfolded through the art of Stelfreeze, Acuña and Jen Bartel before we close with ‘Portraits of a Panther’ and a treasure trove of more incredible images that have resulted from the characters and stories preside here. This includes work and commentary by Bianchi, Mike McKone, Alex Ross, Kirby, Skottie Young, Coipel, Neal Adams, Yasmine Putri, Larry Stroman, Acuña, Mike Perkins, Sanford Greene, Jamal Campbell, Inhyuk Lee, Sophie Campbell, Tradd Moore, Natacha Bustos and Ribi?.

Emotionally engaging, powerfully inspirational, and cathartically thrilling, the fictive realm of the Panther People is one that every fan of thrills and lover of wonder should enjoy. This spectacular visual feast is certainly the only guidebook you should need…
© 2020 MARVEL.

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Spirou & Fantasio volume 18: Attack of the Zordolts


By Yoann & Vehlmann, designed by Fred Blanchard, colored by Hubert & translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-022-7 (Album PB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Manic Mirth and Mad Melodrama… 9/10

Spirou (which translates as both “squirrel” and “mischievous” in the Walloon language) was created by French cartoonist Françoise Robert Velter AKA Rob-Vel for Belgian publisher Éditions Dupuis in response to the phenomenal success of Hergé’s Tintin at rival outfit Casterman.

Soon-to-be legendary weekly comic Le Journal de Spirou launched on April 21st 1938 with a rival red-headed lad as lead feature in an anthology which bears his name to this day. The eponymous hero was a plucky bellboy/lift operator employed in the Moustique Hotel – a sly reference to the publisher’s premier periodical Le Moustique. His improbable adventures with pet squirrel Spip gradually evolved into far-reaching, surreal comedy dramas.

Spirou and his chums have spearheaded the magazine for most of its life, with a phalanx of truly impressive creators carrying on Velter’s work, beginning with his wife Blanche “Davine” Dumoulin who took over the strip when her husband enlisted in 1939. She was assisted by Belgian artist Luc Lafnet until 1943, when Dupuis purchased all rights to the property, after which comic-strip prodigy Joseph Gillain (Jijé) took the helm.

In 1946, his assistant André Franquin assumed the creative reins, gradually ditching the well-seasoned short gag vignettes in favour of epic adventure serials. He also expanded the cast, introducing a broad band of engaging regulars and eventually creating phenomenally popular magic animal Marsupilami.

Franquin was followed by Jean-Claude Fournier who updated the feature over nine stirring adventures tapping into the rebellious, relevant zeitgeist of the times: offering tales of environmental concern, nuclear energy, drug cartels and repressive regimes.

By the 1980s the series seemed outdated and lacked direction. Three different creative teams alternated on the feature, until it was overhauled and revitalised by Philippe Vandevelde (writing as Tome) and artist Jean-Richard Geurts AKA Janry. They adapted, referenced and in many ways returned to the beloved Franquin era.

Their sterling efforts revived the floundering feature’s fortunes, generating 14 wonderful albums between 1984 and1998. As the strip diversified into parallel strands (Spirou’s Childhood/Little Spirou and guest-creator specials A Spirou Story By…), the team on the core feature were succeeded by Jean-David Morvan & José-Luis Munuera. Then Yoann & Vehlmann took over the never-ending procession of amazing adventures…

Multi-award-winning French comics author Fabien Vehlman was born in 1972, began his comics career in 1996 and has been favourably likened to René Goscinny. He’s best known for Green Manor (illustrated by Denis Bodart), Seven Psychopaths with Sean Phillips, Seuls (drawn by Bruno Gazzotti and available in English as Alone), Wondertown with Benoit Feroumont and Isle of 1000,000 Graves with Jason.

He assumed the writing reins on Spirou and Fantasio in collaboration with Yoann. beginning with the book on review here – 2010’s Spirou et Fantasio – Alerte aux Zorkons.

Yoann Chivard was born in October 1971 and was drawing non-stop by the age of five. With qualifications in Plastic Arts and a degree in Communication from the Academy of Fine Arts in Angers, he became a poster and advertising artist whilst dabbling in comics. His creations include Phil Kaos and Dark Boris for British Indie publications Deadline and Inkling, Toto l’Ornithorynque, Nini Rezergoude, La Voleuse de Pere-Fauteuil, Ether Glister and Bob Marone and he has contributed to Trondheim & Sfar’s Donjon. In 2006, Yoann was the first artist to produce a Spirou et Fantasio one shot Special. It was scripted by Vehlmann…

Cinebook have been publishing Spirou & Fantasio’s exploits since 2009, alternating between the various superb reinterpretations of Franquin and earlier efforts from the great man himself. When Jijé handed Franquin all responsibilities for the strip part-way through Spirou et la maison préfabriqué (LJdS #427, June 20th 1946), the new guy ran with it for two decades; enlarging the scope and horizons until it became purely his own. Almost every week fans would meet startling new characters such as staunch comrade and rival Fantasio or crackpot inventor and Merlin of mushroom mechanics Pacôme Hégésippe Adélard Ladislas de Champignac – The Count of Champignac…

Spirou and Fantasio became globe-trotting journalists, travelling to dangerously exotic places, uncovering crimes, exploring the fantastic and clashing with a coterie of exotic arch-enemies such as Fantasio’s deranged and wicked cousin Zantafio and that maddest of scientists, Zorglub.

This old school chum and implacable rival of Champignac is an outrageous Bond movie-flavoured villain who constantly targets the Count. A brilliant engineer, his incredible machines are far less dangerous than his mesmerising mind-controlling “Zorglwave” and an apparently unshakable desire to conquer Earth and dominate the solar system from a base on the Moon…

This tale opens with the seemingly reformed plotter stealing some of Champignac’s most incredible mushroom-based miracles and triggering a massive mutational event in and around the bucolic generally placid hamlet of Champignac-in-the-Sticks.

The first Spirou and Fantasio hear of it is a desperate cell phone call from Pacôme, who has just reappeared after weeks amnesiac and missing. Driving back from a promotional tour, our heroes race across country only to find the placid region is now an armed camp, with soldiers in biohazard gear brutally decontaminating villagers.

The little valley has become a monstrous alien jungle dominated and transformed by weird and incredible plant/animal/fungus creatures, but neither they nor the military – who are keen on immediately nuking the geographical atrocity – can stop our dedicated reporters sneaking in to find their friends.

On locating the Count and his two new chums – hot Swedish science students Astrid and Lena – the lads learn that the brave new world is an accident and hideous side effect of Zorglub’s latest scheme, and that he’s sorrier than anyone at the state of the local environment.

He’s certainly keen enough on fixing the problem…

Other than the fact that everything wants to eat everything else, and that many of the human locals seem comfortable and accustomed to the changes, the main problem seems to be a rapidly proliferating and aggressive form of beast man. The jungle is now a superfast evolutionary Petri dish with everything in it part of an arms race to out-compete all rivals. These brutish bipeds have for some reason evolved immunity to Zorglub’s Zorglwave by having oodles of aggression and not enough intellect. They are ravening, unstoppable Zordolts…

Not sure what’s happening, but resolved to stop the Army bombing the village before foiling Zorglub, everybody works frantically together and succeeds in part one of the plan, but when the jests are repelled and the Zordolts stopped by Champignac’s newly-liberated dinosaur they find the villain vanished.

By the time Champignac has worked his mushroom magic in reverse and restored most of the status quo, the Master of the Z ray is long gone. If our heroes could look up high enough, they might see him well on his way to the moon with Astrid in Lena in tow and about to set his Great Masterwork in motion…

To be Continued…

Rocket-paced, action-packed, compellingly convoluted and with just the right blend of perfectly blending helter-skelter excitement and sheer daftness, Attack of the Zordolts is a terrific romp to delight devotees of easy-going adventure.

Stuffed with an astounding array of astonishing hi-tech spoofery, riotous chases and gazillions of sight gags and verbal ripostes, this exultant escapade is a fabulous fiesta of angst-free action and thrills. Readily accessible to readers of all ages and drawn with beguiling style and seductive energy and wit, this is pure cartoon gold, truly deserving of reaching the widest audience possible.

Buy it for you, get another for the kids and give copies to all your friends…
Original edition © Dupuis, 2010 by Vehlmann, Yoann, Blanchard & Hubert. All rights reserved. English translation 2021 © Cinebook Ltd.

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Essential Rampaging Hulk volume 1


By Doug Moench, John Warner, Walter Simonson, Alfred Alcala, Alex Niño, Jim Starlin, Keith Pollard, Tony DeZuñiga, Herb Trimpe, Sal Buscema, Ron Wilson, Bill Sienkiewicz, Rudy Nebres, Bob McLeod & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2699-7 (TPB)

The Incredible Hulk was Marvel’s second “superhero” title, although technically Henry Pym debuted earlier in a one-off yarn in Tales to Astonish #27 (January 1962). However, he didn’t become a costumed hero until the autumn, by which time Ol’ Greenskin was not-so-firmly established.

The Hulk crashed right into his own comic book and – after some classic romps by Young Marvel’s finest creators – crashed right out again. After six bi-monthly issues the series was cancelled and Lee retrenched, making the man-monster a perennial guest-star in Marvel’s other titles (Fantastic Four #12, Amazing Spider-Man #14, The Avengers from #1 and so forth) until such time as they restarted his own exploits in the new “Split-Book” format. The Jade Giant landed in Tales To Astonish where Ant/Giant-Man was rapidly proving to be a character who had outlived his time.

It all began in The Incredible Hulk #1 (cover-dated May 1962) which saw puny atomic scientist Bruce Banner sequestered on a secret military base in the desert, and perpetually bullied by bombastic commander General “Thunderbolt” Ross as the clock counted down to the world’s first Gamma Bomb test. Besotted by Ross’s daughter Betty, Banner endured the General’s constant jibes as the clock ticked on and tension increased. During the final countdown, Banner spotted a teenager lollygagging at Ground Zero and frantically rushed to the site to drag the boy away…

Rick Jones was a wayward but good-hearted kid. After initial resistance he let himself be pushed into a safety trench, but just as Banner was about to join him The Bomb detonated…

Miraculously surviving the blast, Banner and the boy were secured by soldiers, but that evening as the sun set the scientist underwent a monstrous transformation. He grew larger and his skin turned a stony grey…

In six simple pages that’s how it all started, and no matter what any number of TV, movie or comic book retcons and psycho-babble re-evaluations would have you believe, it’s still the best and most primal take on the origin. A good man, an unobtainable girl, a foolish kid, an unknown enemy and the horrible power of destructive science unchecked. It was clearly also the idea for a later iteration where continuity was rolled right back to the era of the first run: set in the Sixties and revealing previously “untold tales”…

In December 1976 that’s how the retrospective spin-off series began. Now a literal and figurative Marvel powerhouse, the Jade Juggernaut was awarded a monochrome magazine free of Comics Code supervision to augment his many in-continuity appearances. The Rampaging Hulk took the controversial tack of telling stories of what Banner, Jones and the Big Guy did next during the further formation of the nascent Marvel Universe…

Keeping up the theme, early issues featured tales of monster-hunter Ulysses Bloodstone, but you’ll need to look elsewhere for them…

The Hulk stories were set in 1963, after his own first series foundered, and – following a terse retelling of the classic origin cited above – scripter Doug Moench and illustrators Walt Simonson & Alfredo Alcala channelled primal Jack Kirby via a rather heavy grey-tone wash in a wild yarn of flying saucer sightings over Rome. The portentous sightings heralded invasion and, by also referencing the company’s early Sixties monster mag triumphs, the second-generation creators tacitly acknowledged their target audience: a supposedly older magazine readership who were presumably many of the same kids who had bought the original fantasy masterpieces…

Moench’s scripts and tone were wryly tongue-in-cheek, offering constant visual and verbal comedic touches whilst channelling early Marvel continuity and the tropes of the Sixties, if only as seen from the distant perspective of ten years after…

The magazine phenomenon had only a minor impact and effect on the Hulk’s four-colour adventures at that time, but, as always, the fury-fuelled fugitive was alternately aided or hunted by General Ross and met a variety of guest-star heroes and villains…

Opening gambit ‘The Krylorian Conspiracy’ saw Banner and Jones teaming up with alien rebel Bereet: a pacifist techno-artist hiding on Earth and seeking to prevent her bellicose shape-shifting people conquering humanity. The militaristic, monster-obsessed Krylorians – having failed to recruit the Gamma Goliath – attack Rome whilst enlisting the aid of The Hulk’s first super-foe: renegade Russian mutant The Gargoyle. Of course, they intend to betray him at the first opportunity…

It all ends up in a colossal clash with lots of spectacular smashing, with Bereet, Jones, Banner and The Hulk all resolved to stop the invasion at any cost…

Embellisher Alcala switched to a drybrush technique for the second issue as ‘And Then… The X-Men’ finds the wanderers in Paris, contesting more Krylorian shapeshifters, robots and crazy creatures, and subsequently attracting the attention of a certain band of mutant hunting teenagers. After the customary violent misunderstandings, the clandestine outsiders join forces with the Hulk to stop the razing of the City of Lights…

Another early foe returned as #3 shifted the action to the South of France where ‘The Monster and the Metal Master’ sees the treacherous Krylorians dupe and exploit another alien – a manic metal-moulding malcontent who appeared in the last issue of the original Hulk comic – into piloting their new weapon (“The Ferronaut”), whilst Rick, Bruce and Bereet seek to save little boy Spirou from being abused by his guardian and hotel-running employer. When they also find the invaders, all hell breaks loose and another Krylor base gets rocked to rubble…

The Rampaging Hulk #4 diverts from the overarching plot arc as Jim Starlin & Alex Niño take the tormented Green Giant to another time and place situated on ‘The Other Side of Night!’ Scripted by John Warner from Starlin’s plot, the tale reveals how extraterrestrial wizard Chen K’an abducts Banner and places his intellect into the Hulk’s body to make him the ideal comrade in a quest to defeat evil and save his dying, demon-infested world. The plan succeeds, but as is always the case with mages, Chen K’an has been less than honest about his ultimate intentions…

Back on Earth and his own era, the Hulk next meets his undersea antithesis in an epic 2-part continued tale from Moench, Keith Pollard, Alcala & Tony DeZuñiga. Beginning with ‘Lo, the Sub-Mariner Strikes!’ wherein Krylorians use manufactured sea monsters to assault Atlantis and provoke Prince Namor’s retaliation on Rome. The scheme explosively escalates as Sub-Mariner rescues and is captivated by Bereet, provoking a far from chivalrous response from the Hulk…

During the monumental battle that follows, Bereet is wounded and taken by Namor to Atlantis. The ever-enraged Hulk and Rick follow for cataclysmic climax ‘…And All the Sea With Monsters!’ arriving just in time to duel Namor in his own element until another Krylorian undersea attack puts them on the same side… for a moment…

Throughout the series, Bereet’s semi-sentient techno-creations had played a major role in aiding their efforts but in #7 a typical Hulk tantrum unleashes an inimical spirit inhabiting her bag of tricks and spawning a terrifying ‘Night of the Wraith!’ (Moench, Pollard & Jim Mooney) before the end of the reprised era begins with #8’s ‘A Gathering of Doom!’ – illustrated by Hulk veteran Herb Trimpe & Alcala.

The Hulk’s biggest boost after his debut title was cancelled came as he fought, joined, co-founded and left The Avengers: a saga that took up the first five issues of the new team title. Here that debt is acknowledged in another 2-parter as the Krylorians at last attack America and the valiant trio go after them.

With the shapeshifters impersonating recently emergent hero Iron Man, and the Hulk battling the doppelganger, other new champions are drawn to the conflict. However, when Thor, Ant-Man, The Wasp and the real Iron Man converge, another wrong conclusion is leapt to and the “Pre-Vengers” turn on the big green angry monster…

The shattering finale is by Moench, Sal Buscema & Rudy Mesina as all-out chaos explodes when the assembled titans clash. It’s exactly to wrong moment for the Krylorian fleet to distract everybody with a screaming attack, but that’s what they do, accidentally uniting the suspicious heroic strangers who join forces to ‘To Avenge the Earth’ and repel the invasion…

Originally released as newsprint magazine, The Rampaging Hulk abruptly transformed (and became the testing ground of the company’s “Marvelcolor” process) when a hugely successful TV show starring the Green Goliath took off. It saw the periodical upgraded to slicker paper stock. Sadly, that’s not apparent in this monochrome collection, but I’m sure that one day we’ll see the tales as they were meant to be…

The obliquely continuity-adjacent storylines were instantly shelved and the narrative tone adjusted to address the needs of casual curious readers and television converts. Although guest stars were dropped the scenario shifted back to present day as a solitary emerald outcast wandered the world looking for a cure or at least a little peace…

Supposedly a more sophisticated product, the book also offered a home to Moon Knight, who moved in for a series of darkly modern tales also outside standard superhero parameters.

Only a taste of those is included here, but before those begin, #10 of retitled The Hulk! magazine offers ‘Thunder of Dawn’ with Moench, Ron Wilson & Ricardo Villamonte depositing Hulk/Banner in the Pacific west and working in a local mine.

A born trouble-magnet, Banner takes up with Dawn – a whistle-blower investigating kickbacks and environmental abuses but his assistance only triggers tragedy, murder and a blockbusting battle against colossal digging machines…

The tale is divided by a brief prose vignette by David Anthony Kraft & Dwight Jon Zimmerman with spot illustrations by Ernie Chan. ‘The Runaway and the Rescuer!’ channels a key moment of a classic Universal Pictures Frankenstein film as the lonely misunderstood monster befriends a little girl with tragic and unexpected consequences…

Issue #11 (October 1978) continues the scary star’s picaresque perambulations with restless vagrant Banner joining a travelling circus, only to find his cherished anonymity threatened by ‘The Boy Who Cried Hulk!’ (inked by Fran Matera). When the abused kid’s plight coincides with a string of suspicious fires, Banner’s new friends (such as strongman Bruno) turn against him, and the Hulk is again unleashed…

Moench, Wilson & Chan return to Bruno in #12 as ‘The Color of Hate!’ sees the humiliated performer – now obsessed by the mysterious green brute – sign up for a science experiment and steal an exoskeleton to destroy his personal bête noire (or is that vert?)

The Hulk! #13 finds Banner flying to Zurich after a newspaper headline hints at a possible cure for The Hulk. Inked by Bob McLeod, ‘Season of Terror’ starts with the Green Goliath bringing down the airliner an increasingly stressed Banner was a passenger on – and that was before hijackers took control of the cockpit…

The enraged colossus redeems himself by (mostly) saving it from crashing into an alp with a minimum of fatalities, but that only means the terrorists are able to make hostages of the survivors. As a wary, weary Banner tries to keep everyone safe until rescue parties arrive, he is reminded again what true monsters look and act like…

With Rudy Nebres inking Wilson, the Swiss tragedy resolves into a spark of hope as the fugitive scientist finds ‘A Cure for Chaos!’ in the chateau/schloss of Dr. Hans Feldstadt. Sadly, not all researchers are as altruistic as Banner and the hope is extinguished amidst a wash of unleashed gamma rays and a flurry of huge flying fists…

This initial compilation concludes with Alcala back for #15 (June 1980) to ink Wilson on ‘The Top Secret’. Banner is again in his southwestern desert stomping grounds, and headed for his old subterranean secret lab, resolved to cure himself but the region is now home to bunch of crazed militarists seeking to gain a technological head start on the Soviet Union, telemetrically planting good American patriots in fearsome Cybortron warbots…

When they stumble across and even capture The Hulk, the researchers think they’ve found a way to upgrade the tech even further, but it’s never a good idea to let Banner or The Hulk near your machines or plans…

Just for once, the full contents of this issue are included in the form of a notional crossover between headliner and back-up star. As stated above, Moon Knight was building his reputation in the rear of this title and here is part of a single encounter told from two perspectives. Moench, Sienkiewicz & McLeod explored ‘An Eclipse, Waning’ with millionaire playboy Steven Grant indulging a neglected passion for astronomy by visiting an old pal in the countryside on the night of a total lunar occultation. The event brings brutal burglars out of the woodwork and Moon Knight is required to stop them, but, bizarrely, at the height of the eclipse, during the moment of utter darkness, the Lunar Avenger encounters something huge, monstrous and unbeatable, barely escaping with his life.

Answers come in ‘An Eclipse Waxing’ as on that same night, fugitive Bruce Banner stumbles into burglars breaking into an isolated house. Helplessly transforms into the Hulk just as total night falls, the monster briefly encounters an unseen foe of uncanny capabilities…

With painted covers by Ken Barr, Earl Norem, Starlin, Val Mayerik and Bob Larkin, plus pin-ups and frontispiece from occasional series ‘Great moments in Hulk History’ revisited and reprised by Moench and artists Ed Hannigan, John Romita, Jr. & Nebres, Al Milgrom, Chan, Terry Austin, Rich Buckler, Simonson, Mike Zeck and Gene Colan, this tome concludes with a house ad and a bargain bonus.

In regular monthly comic book The Incredible Hulk #269 (cover-dated March 1982 and by Bill Mantlo &Sal Buscema) it was revealed that the entire tranche of lost 1960s stories and Krylorian Saga was actual an art installation by alien artis Bereet. That 5-page sequence is included here to denote the character finally joining the official Marvel continuity…

The Hulk is one of the most well-known comics characters in the business, thanks in great part to his numerous assaults on the wider world of both large and small screens. The satisfyingly effective formula of radioactively-afflicted Bruce Banner wandering the Earth seeking a cure for his gamma-transformative curse whilst constantly pursued by authoritarian forces struck a particular chord in the late 1970s as the first live action TV show captured the hearts and minds of the viewing public. You can relive or at last sample that simplistic but satisfying situation just by stopping here for little while before inevitably moving on…
© 1976, 1977, 1978, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Black Max: Volume 2


By Frank S. Pepper, Alfonso Font & various (Rebellion Studios)
ISBN: 978-1-78108-862-3 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Astounding Air Ace Action… 9/10

It’s time for another sortie down memory lane for us oldsters and hopefully a fresh, untrodden path for fans of the fantastic seeking a typically quirky British comics experience.

This stunning sequel selection delivers one more stunning nostalgia-punch from Rebellion’s superb and ever-expanding Treasury of British Comics, collecting more episodes of seminal war/horror shocker Black Max.

The strip debuted in Thunder #1 and ran the distance: surviving cancelation and merger and continuing into Lion and Thunder until that magazine finally gave up the ghost mid-decade.

This second volume carries the next wave of those stories, covering May 15th to December 25th 1971, with the periodical perils rounded out by longer yarn taken from Thunder Annual 1973.

The series is typical of the manner in which weekly periodicals functioned back then: devised by screenwriter, veteran Editor and prolific scripter Ken Mennell (Cursitor Doom, Steel Claw, The Spider and many more) with the first episode limned by the company’s star turn for mood and mystery Eric Bradbury (Invasion, The Black Crow, Cursitor Doom, House of Dolman, Hookjaw and dozens more). The whole kit and kaboodle was then handed off to another team to sink or swim with, which they did until 1974: a pretty respectable run for a British comic…

In many ways, the attrition rate of British comic strips bore remarkable similarities to casualty figures in war, but this serial was well-starred. The assigned writer was Frank S. Pepper. who began his legendary comics career in 1926. By 1970 he had clocked up many major successes like Dan Dare, Rockfist Rogan, Captain Condor, Jet-Ace Logan and Roy of the Rovers to name but a very, very few.

Series illustrator Alfonso Font was a ten-year veteran – mostly for overseas publications. Based in Spain, he had worked not just for Odhams/Fleetway but on strips for US outfits Warren and Skywald and continental classics such as Historias Negras (Dark Stories), Jon Rohner, Carmen Bond, Bri D’Alban, Tex Willer, Dylan Dog and more…

Episodic by nature and generally delivered in sharp, spartan 3-page bursts, by the time of these trench warfare and skyborne tales the premise and key characters were firmly established and Pepper & Font were growing bolder and more experimental…

In 1917, the Great War was slowly being lost by Germany and her allies. In the Bavarian schloss of Baron Maximilien von Klorr, the grotesque but brilliant scientist and fighter ace had devised a horrific way to tip the scales back in favour of his homeland. His extremely ancient family had for millennia enjoyed an affinity with bats and the current scion had bred giant predatory versions he controlled by various means – including telepathy – that flew beside him to terrify and slaughter the hated English. Initially, they had been a secret weapon used sparingly but by this juncture soldiers and aviators knew well this other form of death from the skies…

His schemes were imperilled and countered on a weekly basis by young British pilot Tim Wilson of Twelve Squadron. Originally a performer in a peacetime flying circus, the doughty lad was possibly the best acrobatic aviator on the Western Front and his constant encounters with von Klorr and the colossal chiropteran constantly frustrated the manic monster master…

Now, Wilson’s superiors are aware of the fearsome bio-weapons, and thanks to his constant interference, the Baron devotes an astonishing amount of time and effort to killing the English fighter ace …when not butchering Allied fliers and ground troops in vast numbers.

The odds seemed to shift once von Klorr began mass-producing his monsters, but Wilson eventually gained the upper hand: driving “Black Max” out of his castle HQ and into a hidden facility where the villain retrenched and made bigger, better terrors…

The private duel resumes here as extended, multi-part serials became standard. The first finds veteran English Ace Colonel “Hero” Hall quitting his desk job to take personal command of Twelve Squadron, after his younger brother is reported missing after meeting Max’s bats.

The vendetta makes life particularly hard for Tim Wilson and leads to Hall’s gross dereliction of duty in the field, but does send the German into retreat and cost him almost all of his monstrous animal allies…

On the back foot and frantically rebuilding, von Klorr is forced to improvise. Capturing and brainwashing ambitious new British recruit Johnny Crane the evil genius embeds him as a secret weapon against Wilson. After miraculously and obliviously escaping many traps, Tim is eventually captured by his nemesis and subjected to the same torture process, before turning the tables on Black Max and apparently killing the bat man in a spectacular escape…

Of course it’s not true and the Baron resurfaces in London weeks later. Wilson is there too, on sick leave, but as Zeppelins bomb the capital, he stumbles into a plot to kidnap British animal scientist Professor Dutton. Von Klorr needs the boffin to improve the strength of his killer beasts, but cannot resist going after Wilson too: a mistake that scuttles his grand scheme and costs him dearly…

Down but never out, the Baron returns to his regular tactics and familiar killing fields, but suffers another reversal when Wilson discovers his current laboratory base. With only one giant bat and his resources exhausted, Von Klorr relocates to a deserted aerodrome to consider his options and is shocked to receive a message from his grandfather. The terrifying patriarch of the bat clan has arcane knowledge spanning millennia and reveals he has unearthed an ancient potion to recreate the “great King-bat”!

Recovering the actual formula is far from easy as it rests beneath Allied lines, but after herculean efforts Black Max secures it and doses his final pet. Thanks to more timely interference from Tim, the killer beast imbibes far too large a dose and mutates into an immense, unstoppable horror that attacks both German and British lines, necessitating an unprecedented alliance of the sworn enemies. Wilson is completely ready for von Klorr to betray him, but is still taken unawares when the moment comes – just as they finally kill the rampaging terror…

To Be Continued…

As previously stated, this initial collection also includes a complete adventure from Thunder Annual 1973: an extended saga rendered by Font but sadly uncredited as regards a writer. It’s 1917, and Black Max is distracted from his obsession when glory-hungry Prussian Ace Major Heinrich Stynkel uses his influence to ground the bats and their master so that he can have first pick of the English fliers. The new psychopath’s plot almost ends the reign of terror until cruel fate and Wilson play their part in a macabre comedy of errors…

These strip shockers are amongst the most memorable and enjoyable exploits in British comics: smart, scary and beautifully rendered. This a superb example of war horror that deserves to be revived and revered.
© 1971, 1973 & 2021 Rebellion Publishing Ltd. Black Max and all related characters, their distinctive likenesses and related elements are ™ Rebellion Publishing Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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Justice Society of America: The Demise of Justice


By Len Strazewski, John Broome, Paul Levitz, Rick Burchett, Grant Miehm, Mike Parobeck, Tom Artis, Frank McLaughlin, Frank Giacoia, Arthur Peddy, Bernard Sachs, Joe Staton & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-7795-0744-0 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Golden Ageist Evergreen Enjoyment… 8/10

Released in 2021 to celebrate their 80th anniversary, here’s yet another DC core concept given fresh wings by a modern movie. If you can find it, this hardback/digital delight is good old fashioned fun and will make a perfect present for you or yours…

After the actual invention of the comic book superhero – the Action Comics debut of Superman in 1938 – the most significant event in the industry’s history was the combination of individual sales-points into a group.

Thus what seems blindingly obvious to us with the benefit of four-colour hindsight was proven: consumers couldn’t get enough of garishly-hued mystery men, and combining many characters inevitably increased readership. Plus, of course, a mob of superheroes is just so much cooler than one – or one-and-a-half if there’s a sidekick involved…

The creation of the Justice Society of America utterly changed the shape of the budding business and – technically – All Star Comics #3 (cover-dated Winter 1940-1941, released in December 1940) was the kick-off. However, in that landmark, the assembled heroes merely had dinner whilst recounting recent cases and didn’t actually go on a mission together until #4 (cover-dated April 1941).

With the simple notion that mighty mystery men hung out together, history was made and it wasn’t long before they started working together…

However, when WWII ended, superheroes gradually declined, and most companies had shelved them by 1950. The plunge in popularity led to a revival in genre-themed titles and characters, and it was a stripped-down team (Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, The Atom, Black Canary, Dr. Mid-Nite and Wonder Woman) who battled on in contemporarily tailored crime and science fiction sagas before the title abruptly changed into All Star Western with #58.

It would take a second age of superheroes to revive them, this time as the champions of a parallel universe dubbed Earth Two…

Gathered here is a near-forgotten limited series concerning the latter days of the team’s Golden Age that originally ran in Justice Society of America #1-8 (April to November 1991), augmented by the last tale of the original era as seen in All-Star Comics #57, (February/March 1951), plus a turning point tale from Adventures Comics #466 (December 1979). They are preceded a sparkling, informative and appreciative Foreword by Golden Age aficionado and super scripter Mark Waid.

The miniseries – subtitled Vengeance from the Stars! – that comprises the majority of this tome was scripted by journalist and educator Len Strazewski (Speed Racer, The Flash, Phantom Lady, Starman, The Fly, The Web, Prime, Prototype, Elven) and illustrated by a rotating team of artists, opening as Rick Burchett illustrates ‘Beware the Savage Skies’. Here recently-retired mystery man Ted Knight – AKA Starman – is attacked in his private New Mexico observatory by incredible astral energy beings. Broken and dispirited, he is then enslaved by an old enemy who purloins his wondrous gravity rod before luring Jay (Flash) Garrick into a deathtrap that results in power outages across America…

The plot thickens with ‘The Sack of Gotham’ (art by Grant Miehm) as radio and television executive Alan Scott seeks to keep the lights on in his city whilst Black Canary prowls the darkened streets deterring looters and career criminals. Distracted by a museum break-in, she finds herself punching way, way up as undead monster/moron Solomon Grundy and a gang of determined bandits help themselves to ancient Egyptian artefacts at the behest of a hidden client. By the time Scott arrives as Green Lantern, the Canary has been thrashed and captured, leaving him to battle an animated star constellation dubbed Sagittarius…

Burchett inks the astoundingly talented Mike Parobeck in #3’s ‘Dead Air’, as the star thing blacks out Gotham and Scott struggles to stop it. Complications occur when Grundy – afflicted with an obsessive hatred of Green Lantern – forgets the orders from the mystery Machiavelli to attack his emerald enemy. Far away, Ted Knight learns that his gleeful foe intends to conquer Earth by eradicating modern technologies and attitudes and replace them with primordial magic and tyranny…

Tom Artis & Frank McLaughlin limn #4 as ‘Evil of the Ancients’ sees reincarnating Egyptian warrior Hawkman uncovering star-themed neolithic treasures in his day job as archaeologist Carter Hall. These findings expose the history and provenance of the constellation creatures, but also trigger the arrival of another…

Despite aerial valour and the US Army’s best efforts, deadly colossus Andromeda storms off with a clutch of atom bombs and only the sudden arrival of The Flash prevents utter disaster. The clash resumes in ‘Double Star Rising!’ by Parobeck & Burchett, as arcane knowledge and modern tech savvy combine to trace the stellar plunderer and the incredible pyramid of power it is constructing. When the heroes try to destroy it they are confronted with a second energy horror but find a way to defeat both at once, compelling the man behind the plot to finally take a personal hand in the fight…

Far across the country the Lantern and the Canary escape captivity in ‘Danger Flies the Skies’ (Artis & McLaughlin), thanks to some timely aid from valiant sidekick Doiby Dickles, and track west after the museum artefacts in time to reinforce Flash and Hawkman in ‘The Return of the Justice Society’ (art by Miehm & Burchett). Redeemed and reinspired, Knight once more takes up his costumed identity to end the villain’s plot in ‘Battle of the Stars!’

In the heady aftermath, the JSA ponder what the next decade will bring, unaware that political conspiracies, public paranoia and a wave of intolerance masquerading as social conformity was waiting to change the world in ways no one could anticipate…

In continuity terms, this was technically the antepenultimate adventure of the JSA, with the rousing romp slyly heralding mood swings in the heartland of Democracy. It is thus smartly supplemented by the team’s final appearance of the Golden Age (in All-Star Comics #57) and a chilling, thematically-aligned codicil from Adventures Comics #466.

Written by John Broome and illustrated by Frank Giacoia, Arthur Peddy & Bernard Sachs, All-Star Comics #57 was the JSA’s last hurrah as ‘The Mystery of the Vanishing Detectives!’ pitted them against criminal mastermind The Key. When he abducted Earth’s greatest criminologists in advance of a spectacular robbery spree, the superheroes were called in to solve the case and prevent an impending catastrophe. It took a lot of time and effort, but the JSA never fail…

The fallow period and gradual return of the JSA was a major success of fan power in the 1960s, but that decade too ended with superheroes on the wane. During the torrid and turbulent 1970s, many of the comics industry’s oldest publishing ideas were finally laid to rest. The belief that characters could be “over-exposed” was one of the most pernicious and long-lasting (although it never hurt Superman, Batman or the original Captain Marvel), garnered from years of experience in an industry which lived or died on that fractional portion of pennies derived each month from the pocket-money and allowances of children which wasn’t spent on candy, toys or movies.

By the end of the 1960s, comic book costs and retail prices were inexorably rising and a proportion of titles – especially the newly revived horror stories – were consciously being produced for older readerships. Nearly a decade of organised fan publications and letter writing crusades had finally convinced publishing bean-counters what editors already knew: grown-ups avidly read comics too. Moreover, they happily spent more than kids and craved more, more, more of what they loved.

Explicitly: If one appearance per month was popular, extras, specials and second series would be more so. By the time Marvel Comics Wunderkind Gerry Conway left The House of Ideas, DC was willing and ready to expand its variegated line-up with some oft-requested fan-favourite characters. Paramount among these was the Justice Society of America, the first comic book super-team and a perennial gem whose annual guest-appearances in the Justice League of America and other superhero titles had become a beloved tradition and treat.

Thus in 1976 writer/editor Conway marked his second DC tenure (he had first broken into the game writing horror shorts for Joe Orlando) by reviving All Star Comics with #58.

In 1951, the original title transformed overnight into All Star Western with the numbering running for a further decade for the home of cowboy crusaders like Strong Bow, The Trigger Twins, Johnny Thunder and Super-Chief. Now, set on Earth-Two, and in keeping with the editorial sense of ensuring a series be relevant to young readers too, Conway reintroduced the veteran team, leavened with a smattering of teen heroes forming a contentious, generation gap-fuelled “Super Squad”…

Augmented by Robin (a JSA-er since the mid-1960s in Justice League of America #55), Sylvester Pemberton/Star-Spangled Kid and a busty young thing who rapidly became the feisty favourite of a generation of growing boys: Kara Zor-L – Power Girl. Closing this collection is a short piece as she and fellow newcomer Huntress discuss how the Golden Age ended…

Taken from massive 68-page anthology title Adventure Comics 466 where Paul Levitz & Joe Staton delivered a pithy history lesson exposing the reason why the team vanished at the beginning of the 1950s, ‘The Defeat of the Justice Society!’ shows how the American Government cravenly betrayed their greatest champions. Set during early days of the McCarthy era anti-communist witch-hunts, a sham trial provoked the mystery men into voluntarily withdrawing from public, heroic life. There they stayed until the costumed stalwarts of Earth-One started the whole Fights ‘n’ Tights scene all over again…

These exuberant, rapid-paced and imaginative yarns perfectly blend the naive charm of Golden Age derring-do with cynically hopeful modern sensibilities. Here you will be reassured that no matter what, in the end our heroes will always find a way to save the day. These are classic tales from simpler times and a glorious example of traditional superhero storytelling at its finest: fun, furious and ferociously engaging, excitingly written and beguilingly illustrated. No Fights ‘n’ Tights fan should miss these marvellous sagas.
© 1951, 1979,1991, 2020 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman: Strange Attractors


By Gail Simone, Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning, John Byrne & Nelson (DC Comics)
ISBN 978-1-4012-0917-9 (TPB)

Here’s a Superman collection tailored to the fight fan, as the mighty Man of Steel takes on a bevy of baddies in terse tales designed as an antidote to an over-abundance of multi-chapter epics. I’m focussing on it here primarily because it’s also a complication- and continuity-light compendium featuring movie Man of the Moment Black Adam…

Created by Otto Binder & C.C. Beck, Black Adam/Teth Adam debuted in The Marvel Family #1, cover-dated December 1945. There he was revealed as the power-corrupted predecessor of current magical superhero (the Original…) Captain Marvel. The Egyptian relic’s reign of evil ended with his death at the end of the story…

You can’t keep a good villain down though, and when the Golden Age Marvel was revived in the 1970s as Shazam!, the ancient antithesis eventually returned to bedevil the heroes. He even survived the continuity changing chaos of Crisis on Infinite Earths and numerous subsequent reboots.

For present purposes, the following is the backstory new readers should access…

Once upon a time Billy Batson was a little boy living on the streets of Fawcett City. His archaeologist parents had left him with an uncle when they went on a dig to Egypt. They never returned, his little sister vanished and Billy was thrown out so his guardian could steal his inheritance.

Sleeping in a storm drain and selling newspapers for cash, the indomitable lad grew street-smart and resilient, but when a shadowy stranger bade him follow into an eerie subway, the boy somehow knew it was all okay. Soon after, he met the wizard Shazam, who bestowed upon him the powers of six ancient Gods and Heroes.

Thus began an astounding career as wholesome powerhouse hero Captain Marvel. Billy eventually found lost sister Mary and shared his nigh-infinite power with her, as they both subsequently did with disabled friend Freddy Freeman.

They fought and eventually reached an accommodation with militant progenitor Black Adam, who was the wizard’s first superhuman champion, reborn in the body of Theo Adam – a distant descendant who had murdered the Batson’s parents. When a succession of crises arose, everything changed.

Immortal Shazam was murdered, Billy was exiled to the transcendent Rock of Eternity as his replacement and Freddy became a new Captain Marvel; his mighty gifts supplied by a completely different pantheon of patrons.

Meanwhile, Black Adam had found peace and redemption in the love of ascendant nature goddess Isis …until she was cruelly taken from him. The worst tragedies befell poor Mary. Deprived of her intoxicating powers she became an addict without a fix… until soul-sick Adam shared his dark energies with her. His corrupted spirit fatally tainted the once-vibrant innocent…

During his lost phase, the Egyptian warrior vacillated between hard-line hero and outright menace: joining the Justice Society of America but also arbitrarily administering his old testament brand of judgement whenever he felt the need…

This selection of Superman stories comes from Action Comics #827-828, and #830-835 (spanning July 2005 through March 2006). The run of was originally interrupted for the “Sacrifice” storyline (and collected as a graphic novel of the same name), so the volume reconvenes with the episode after…

First up is eponymous 2-part saga ‘Strange Attractors’ and Strange Attractors part 2 – Positive Reinforcement’: a battle against the incredibly bad and quite mad Master of Magnetism Dr Polaris, aided, if not abetted, by the resurrected reprobate Black Adam, currently holding a high position in supervillain army The Society…

Following the aforementioned Sacrifice pause, we reconvene with #830’s ‘The Great Society’ as the Man of Tomorrow tackles Dr. Psycho. The old Wonder Woman villain is a physically stunted, sadistic psychologist with the power to control minds. When he arrives in Metropolis intent on mischief, Superman finds that every citizen is a foe and hostage at the same time.

Once again, Black Adam is on hand to render ambivalent assistance as ‘Black & Blue’ (a Villains United tie-in) sees Adam reassess his role before it all devolves into the obligatory fist fight.

Scripted by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning ‘Old Ghosts’ sees Devil-surrogate Lord Satanus and the Spectre use the city as a phantasmal Ground Zero next, and, after refereeing that little cataclysm, Superman finds himself the target of a psychic and spiritual assault from old JLA foe The Queen of Fables in ‘Depths’ and ‘Awake in the Dark’ – with Norm Rapmund, Larry Stucker, Marc Campos, & Oclair Albert joining Nelson in applying inks to John Byrne’s pencils..

The furious ferocious fun concludes in a duel with Livewire, that perky punkette with absolute control of all things electrical who contracts ‘A Contagion of Madness’ with Gail Simone, John Byrne and inker Nelson delivering potent, punchy and self-contained mini-classics.

Not overly complicated, concentrating on exhilaration and excitement, but still managing to sustain some tense sub-plots involving Lois Lane-Kent and the rest of the venerable supporting cast, these stories are just plain fun. It’s a shame that the experiment doesn’t seem to have caught on …
© 2005, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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It Was the War of the Trenches & Goddam This War!


By Tardi with Jean-Pierre Verney, translated by Kim Thompson & Helga Dascher (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-353-8 (HB Trenches) & 978-1-60699-582-2 (HB Goddam)

For years I’ve been declaring that Charley’s War the best comics story about The Great War ever created, but, while I’m still convinced of that fact, there’s a strong contender for the title in the astonishing award-winning conception C’était la guerre des tranchées by cartoonist Jacques Tardi. It began publication in France in 1993 and was released as an English edition by Fantagraphics in 2010. Three years later it was supplemented by an even more impressive and heart-rending sequel.

Credited with creating a new style of expressionistic illustration dubbed “the New Realism”, Tardi is one of the greatest comics creators in the world, blessed with a singular vision and adamantine ideals, even apparently refusing his country’s greatest honour through his wish to be completely free to say and create what he wants.

He was born in the Commune of Valence, Dróme in August 1946 and subsequently studied at École Nationale des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and the prestigious Parisian École Nationale Supérieure des arts Décoratifs before launching his career in comics in 1969 at the home of modern French comics: Pilote.

From illustrating stories by Jean Giraud, Serge de Beketch and Pierre Christian, he moved on to Westerns, crime tales and satirical works in magazines like Record, Libération, Charlie Mensuel and L’Écho des Savanes whilst also graduating into adapting prose novels by Louis-Ferdinand Céline and Léo Malet.

The latter’s detective hero Nestor Burma became the subject of all-new albums written and drawn by Tardi once the established literary canon was exhausted leading, in 1976. to the creation of Polonius in Métal Hurlant and a legendary, super-successful star turn. Les Aventures Extraordinaires d’Adéle Blanc-Sec is an epic period fantasy series which initially ran in the daily Sud-Ouest. The series numbers ten volumes thus far and is still being added to.

The passionate auteur has also crafted many unforgettable anti-war stories – Adieu Brindavoine, Le Fleur au Fusil, Le trou d’obus and more – examining the plight of the common soldier, and has written novels, created radio series, worked in movies, and co-created (with writer Jean Vautrin) Le Cri du Peuple – a quartet of albums about the Parisienne revolt of the Communards.

Whilst his WWI creations are loosely inspired by the experiences of his grandfather, his 2012 graphic novel Moi René Tardi, prisonnier de guerre au Stalag IIB revealed the experiences of his father, a POW in the second conflict to ravage France in a century.

Far too few of this master’s creations are available in English (barely 20 out of more than 50) but, thanks to NBM, iBooks and Fantagraphics, we’re quickly catching up…

An unquestionable masterpiece and international multi-award winner, It Was the War of the Trenches begins with Tardi’s forthright Foreword detailing his process and motivations, plus a copious and chilling Special Thanks page, before a cartoon catalogue of humanity’s greatest folly unfolds.

These interlinked and cross-fertilising vignettes are about people not causes or battles or the fate of nations, with each tale linking to others: comprised of epigrammatic, anecdotal observations of the war as experienced by ordinary soldiers. The saga first saw print in A Suivre before being stitched together as a patchwork quilt of endurance, complaint, venality, misfortune, bravery, cupidity and stupidity, all informed primarily by family stories, but always verified and augmented by focussed research.

As the pages proceed, a litany of injustice and abiding horror unfolds as scared, weary, hopeless, betrayed and crazy men of every type suffer constant pressure, relentless ennui, physical abuse and imminent death…

Seeking and succeeding in bring those appalling experiences to life, Tardi forensically displays the constant shelling, awful weather, death in the skies and in the mud plus every possible variation in between them as an ever-changing roster of reluctant warriors wait for the end. They think of past lives and wasted chances and what turn of fate brought them to this muddy hole in the ground…

Especially poignant are those twists of luck that so often place supposed enemies together against the War itself, but always brief friendships end abruptly and badly, with the only winners being death and guilt and shame…

This is a book no one could read and sustain any vainglorious illusion of combat and honour as noble inspirations. This is a story that begs us all to stop war forever…

In 2013, after more than a decade of meticulous research and diligent crafting, It Was the War of the Trenches was finally supplemented by a sequel…

Translated as a potent and powerful hardback edition in full colour and moody, evocative tonal sequences, this pictorial polemic was originally released as six newspaper-format pamphlets entitled Putain de Guerre! From there it was collected in two albums and came to us as Goddamn This War!, tracing the course of the conflict through the experiences of an anonymous French “grunt”.

At once lucky, devious and cynically suspicious enough to survive, he is a tool used to relate the horrific, boring, scary, disgusting and just plain stupid course of an industrialised war managed by privileged, inbred idiots who think they’re playing games: restaging Napoleon’s cavalry campaigns, but this time as seen from the perspective of the poor sods actually being gassed and bombed and shot at…

Divided into five chapter-years running from ‘1914’ to ‘1919’ (as the global killing didn’t stop just because the Germans signed an Armistice in 1918 – just ask the Turks, Armenians, Russians and other Balkan nations forgotten when hostilities officially ended), the narration is stuffed with the kind of facts and trivia you won’t find in most history books. as our frustrated and disillusioned protagonist staggers from campaign to furlough to what his bosses call victory, noting no credible differences between himself and the “Boche” on the other side of the wire, but huge gulfs between the men with rifles and the toffs in brass on both sides…

This staggeringly emotional testament is backed up and supplemented by a reproduction of ‘The Song of Craonne’ – a ditty so seditious that French soldiers were executed for singing it – and a capacious, revelatory year-by-year photo-essay by historian, photographer and collector Jean-Pierre Verney. His World War I: an Illustrated Chronology chillingly shows the true faces and forces of war and is alone worth the price of admission…

It Was the War of the Trenches (C’était la guerre des tranchées) © 1993 Editions Casterman. This edition © 2010 Fantagraphics Books.
Goddamn This War! (Putain de Guerre!) © 2013 Editions Casterman. This edition © 2013 Fantagraphics Books.

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Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Sub-Mariner volume 1


By Bill Everett, Paul Gustavson, Roy Gill, Harry Sahle, Lewis Glanzman, Stan Lee, Alan Mandel, Mickey Spillane, Art Gates, Basil Wolverton & others (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1617-2 (HB) 978-0-7851-5789-2 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: The Sea Son’s Greatest Golden Moments… 8/10

Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner was the second super-star of the Timely Age of Comics – but only because he followed the cover-featured Human Torch in the running order of Marvel Comics #1 in October 1939. He has had, however, the most impressive longevity of the company’s “Big Three”: Torch, Subby and Captain America…

The Marine Marvel was revived in 1962, an unbeatable force in Fantastic Four #4; once again an anti-hero/noble villain, prominent in the company’s pantheon ever since.

In world, the hybrid offspring of an undersea Atlantean princess and American polar explorer is a being of immense strength: highly resistant to physical harm, able to fly and thrive above and below the waves.

Created by young Bill Everett, Namor technically predates Marvel/Atlas/Timely Comics entirely, and first caught the reading public’s attention as part of the “Fire vs. Water” headliners in the anthological Marvel Comics #1 – which became Marvel Mystery Comics with the second issue. His elementally apposite co-star was the Human Torch, but Namor had originally been seen – albeit in a truncated version – in the monochrome freebie Motion Picture Funnies: a weekly promotional giveaway handed out to moviegoers earlier that year.

Swiftly becoming one of Timely’s biggest draws, Namor won his own title at the end of 1940 (cover-dated Spring 1941) and was one of the last super-characters to go at the end of the first heroic age.

In 1954, when Atlas (as the company had become known) briefly revived the Big Three Everett returned for an extended run of superb fantasy tales, but the time wasn’t right for superheroes yet and the title sunk again. Once again, Subby was the last revived character to be cancelled, as rumours of a possible TV series deal kept the book afloat…

When Stan Lee & Jack Kirby reinvented superheroes in 1961 with the Fantastic Four, they revived the angry amphibian as a troubled, amnesiac, yet decidedly more regal and grandiose anti-hero, who was understandably embittered at the loss of his sub-sea kingdom (seemingly destroyed by American atomic testing). He also became a dangerous bad-boy romantic interest: besotted with the FF’s golden-haired Sue Storm – who couldn’t make up her mind about him for decades…

Namor knocked around the budding Marvel universe for years, squabbling with assorted heroes like the Avengers, X-Men and Daredevil before securing his own series as part of “split-book” Tales to Astonish beside fellow antisocial antihero the Incredible Hulk. From there both went on to become cornerstone of the modern Marvel Universe.

Way back then, after his illustrious (and at long last finally filmic) career began in Marvel Comics #1, the Sub-Mariner solo vehicle launched in Spring 1941. The first four issues are gathered here – in hardcover, trade paperback and digital formats – accompanied by a fact-filled reminiscent Introduction from Subby scribe and comics historian Roy Thomas: sharing all the context and backstory any finny fun-fan could ever need. This titanic tome also incorporates all the rousing in-situ ads seen in the original releases…

Sub-Mariner Comics #1 featured two complete strip-stories starring the conflicted overlord of a “lost subsea kingdom at the South Pole”, plus a chilling back-up yarn starring costumed detective/adventurer The Angel: the first of a long run of macabre thrillers…

The drama begins with a ‘Deep-Sea Blitzkrieg’, prompting Namor to declare war on the perfidious Nazis after a fleet of U-Boats depth-charges his underwater home city. The Avenging Prince immediately retaliates in a bombastic show of super-power that deftly displays the unmatched graphic virtuosity of his creator Bill Everett.

The second story (by Everett and unknown assistants) concerns a deadly disease afflicting the Prince’s aquatic subjects, necessitating the Sub-Mariner’s return to New York. This trip is to obtain – by any means necessary – a supply of Radium. The dual nature of the antihero was always a major factor in Namor’s popularity, so even a shared enemy couldn’t keep him on the good side of the American authorities for long…

For most of these stories Everett and other lead artists used a string of assistants culled from the comic book “Shop” outfits. Sadly, with no accurate records, best guesses for uncredited contributors include Charles Nicholas (nee Wojtkoski), Witmer Williams, Ben Thompson, Sam Gilman, George Mandel, Mike Roy, Al Fagaly & Jimmy Thompson.

These deluxe editions also include the mandatory text features comics were compelled to run to maintain their postal status (an arcane system allowing publishers to procure large postal discounts as “second class mail”) so you can also enjoy prose fable ‘Namor… His Boyhood’ by Roy Gill before moving on to Paul Gustavson’s caped & costumed shamus in 20-page gothic chiller ‘The Angel and the House of Horror’.

Although dressed like a superhero, this dashing do-gooder was actually a blend (knock-off would be perhaps a bit unkind) of Leslie Charteris’ The Saint and The Lone Wolf (Louis Vance’s urbane two-fisted hero who was the subject of 8 books and 24 B-movies between 1917 – 1949).

One marked difference was the quality of the Angel’s enemies: his foes tended towards the arcane, the ghoulish and the just plain demented…

The globe-trotting paladin also seemed able to cast a giant shadow in the shape of an angel -. not the greatest aid to cleaning up the scum of the Earth, but he seemed to manage…

Sub-Mariner Comics #2 (Summer 1941) starts off with an untitled Nazi-busting tale – even though America was officially neutral until December 8th of that year – with Namor foiling a scheme to spring thousands of German POW’s from internment in Canada.

Everett’s hand is still in evidence, but by this time a growing number of the aforementioned assistants were slowly diluting his work as he struggled to produce a monthly strip in Marvel Mystery and his other commitments.

‘Steaming Statistics of Fire and Water’– illustrated by Harry Sahle – offers a package of fun facts before a second tale finds Namor in a Pennsylvania town hunting Fifth columnists and spies fomenting a strike amongst the miners producing coal for ships fuel. Cartoonist Lewis Glanzman provided a ‘Bum Jokes’ gag-page and young Stan Lee scripts text feature ‘The Story behind the Cover: Namor “Blitzes” a Nazi Sub’ before The Angel (art by Alan Mandel) quashes a sinister plot in New England to free ‘The Slaves of the Python’.

The Fall 1941 issue then opens with ‘The Mystery of the Disappearing Island’: a strikingly topical two-part tale combining Winston Churchill, the thorny question of Irish neutrality and a submerged city of druids invaded by Nazis as a staging post for future bomber raids on Britain.

Tinged with immediacy by political issues, this exotic fight-heavy romp was extra-length (40 pages), and followed by a mediocre, uncredited prose tale ‘Dispatch from Africa’ before culminating with a rather incestuous murder mystery wherein the Angel hunts for a killer when ‘Death Draws a Comic Strip!’

Sub-Mariner Comics #4 opens with ‘Murders by Ghost Light’ as Namor investigates a haunted hospital hiding all manner of non-Hippocratic shenanigans. The spooky themes continue when he then encounters a giant madman-made monster in ‘The Horror That Walked’.

‘Fresh Meat for a Raider’ is a prose naval adventure written by a promising young writer named Mickey Spillane, whilst ‘Pop’s Whoppers’ (by Art Gates) is a jolly comedy feature starring an inveterate tall-tale teller, followed by another sinister horror puzzler for the Angel: ‘Death’s Merry-Go-Round!’.

The vintage voyages conclude with a lost gem from legendary graphic genius Basil Wolverton who wraps things up with a comically surreal Dr. Dimwit page.

Before we leave, however, a selection of Sub-Mariner Comics house ads and photo features of a contemporary comics newsstand – with Everett himself – further enhance the period experience…

Many early Marvel Comics are more exuberant than qualitative, but this compendium, even if largely devoid of premier league talent, is a wonderful exception. Offering high-octane – albeit outrageously jingoistic and culturally enmired in its time – staggering action, it is a splendid, historically unvarnished read as well as a forgotten treasure Fights ‘n’ Tights fans will find irresistible.
© 1941, 2005, 2012, 2017 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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No Surrender


By Constance Maud: adapted by Scarlett & Sophie Rickard (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-91422-406-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Triumphant Tribute to Freedom Fighters and Literary Legends… 9/10

Constance Elizabeth Maud (1857-1929) was a child of privilege: daughter of a celebrated English scholar and cleric. She was primarily educated in France and lived there or in Chelsea for most of her life. Between 1895 and 1924 she wrote numerous articles and 8 novels – of which No Surrender was the penultimate – and became a member of the 400-strong Women Writers Suffrage League.

In 1908 she joined The Women’s Social and Political Union and The Women’s Freedom League: turning her writings to the needs of the cause. Her work subsequently appeared in many periodicals, especially magazines like the Suffragist movement’s newspaper Votes For Women.

In No Surrender (published in 1911 – and again in an annotated centenary edition released by publisher Persephone in 2011), Maud incorporated actual events with fictionalised analogues of many contemporary activists participating in the struggle to craft a history and playbook of the campaign for emancipation. The book became a rallying point and recruiting tool for the movement and was used to promote the soft end of the battle for equality. It inspired countless women (and presumable many male sympathisers) with a dramatised story of how the great and good would join with the humblest workers and unite to overcome…

Maud lived just long enough to see British women secure the right to vote: in 1918 with the Representation of the People Act – which enfranchised women over 30 years old – and at last witnessing universal female suffrage established in 1928’s Act, legislating that all Britons of 21 years or above could freely vote.

The main reason why No Surrender was such an effective weapon in the war to win the vote for all is that its propaganda and polemic were disguised by readily accessible drama. Beginning in industrial hub Greyston, ‘The Mill’ tells how northern mill worker Jenny Clegg is fired up by the many injustices afflicting women’s lives: with cruelty, unfair taxation, financial neglect, legitimised maltreatment and a status of second-class citizens chaining every female to a man of the gutter…

Rebelling, she forsakes her crusading socialist love interest Joe Hopton – a successful prime mover in winning better lives and wages for male workers – and dedicates her life to winning those same rights and representation for women. Upper class Suffragist Mary O’Neill has a more refined but similarly intransigent family at ‘The Country House’ all decrying her passion for women’s suffrage. She and Jenny will become friends, allies and leading lights in the struggle, inspiring millions of women, converting men, embarrassing the authorities and challenging a society where even other women refuse to see a status quo threatened…

Both driven by ‘The Calling’, they and a growing army of allies will invade London and suffer police and legal suppression in ‘The Courtyard’ and face ‘The Magistrate’ but never stray from their course. Whether testing tactics in ‘The Routes To Battle’ or challenging their detractors through heated debate on ‘The Cart’ the socially-distanced allies never stop their work, and gradually make converts even amongst the stratified intelligentsia who enjoy the closeted luxuries of ‘The Weekend Cottage’…

The story sees numerous characters interact on many levels like a soap opera, but underpinning it all is a roster of actual protest events woven into the plot, such as ambushing a number of off-duty cabinet ministers in ‘The Church’ and then infiltrating ‘The Dinner Party’ to reinforce their message.

The darkest and most notorious moments of the cause are also featured, as Clegg, O’Neill and other notable activists of every class endure imprisonment, abuse and medical torture – but each according to their own social rank and standing in ‘The Crushed Butterfly’, ‘The Prison’ and the deeply distressing culmination of ‘The Punishment’. Always, efforts to disunite and separate rich from poor, inherently virtuous from tawdry and lowborn, fails as the core principle – that they are all women together – completely eludes the smug, hectoring, insensate elitist male oppressors, prejudiced and scared working men and the Anti-Suffrage Women’s groups populated with ladies who know and defend their privileged place in the world…

Ultimately, Jenny and Joe are united in the cause and Mary makes her own converts in ‘The Homecoming’ before the story ends with a proud rallying of all in the march to inevitable universal enfranchisement and victory in ‘The Standard is Raised’ – a rousing graphic tour de force with illustrator Sophie Rickard crafting a stunning multi-page fold-out any art fan would cry to see…

Maud’s tale was ostensibly a romance and account of families in crisis with a thinly disguised moral message like a Dickens or Thomas Hardy novel. She explored and contrasted the lives of poor working folk with gentry and aristocracy, but also scrupulously catalogued the added travails and insecurities of working women. At this time women had been successively deprived of most financial and civil rights and privileges. They had to pay taxes but enjoyed no representation under the law; could not be legal guardians of their own children or property and, if married, could not divorce whilst their husbands could. The men could also beat them, but only with cudgels of judicially-mandated size…

At the end of this hefty and substantial graphic novel there’s a chart showing when – and how incrementally – the nations of the world instituted female enfranchisement, and an Afterword by adapting creators Scarlett & Sophie Rickard (Mann’s Best Friend, A Blow Borne Quietly, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists), naming names and offering factual provenance for the incidents and characters enriching the narrative.

It also declares why – in the current environment where a citizen’s right to dissent and protest is being deviously and criminally whittled away – the principles of organised resistance and role and consequences of righteous civil disobedience must be stridently defended…

Fair minded, honestly and powerfully expressing the views of all – including those opposing universal enfranchisement (and restoration of previously-removed social and civil rights) – Maud’s words are reinvigorated here with the authorities, capitalists, police and judiciary all given a fair hearing – and generally convicted out of their own mouths.

Of particular interest to modern readers will be the opinions of women who didn’t want a vote and the low workingmen who were generally the most passionate and violent opponents of change and equality…

Powerful, enraging, engaging and even occasionally funny, this never-more-timely tale of the force of the disenfranchised with their backs to the wall and ready to fight is supremely readable and should be compulsory viewing for all – as long as we don’t force anyone to…
© 2022 SelfMadeHero. Text © 2022 Sophie Rickard. Artwork © 2022 Scarlett Rickard. All rights reserved.