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Mighty Thor Marvel Masterworks volume 18


By Roy Thomas, Don Glut, Don Thompson, Maggie Thompson, Mark Gruenwald, Ralph Macchio, John Buscema, Keith Pollard, Walter Simonson, Alan Kupperberg, Wayne Boring, Arvell Jones, Pablo Marcos, Tom Palmer, Chic Stone, Ernie Chan, Tony DeZuñiga & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-1821-7 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Once upon a time, disabled physician Donald Blake took a vacation in Norway, only to stumble into an alien invasion. Trapped in a cave, he found an ancient walking stick which, when struck against the ground, turned him into the Norse God of Thunder! Within moments, he was defending the weak and smiting the wicked. Months swiftly passed, with the Lord of Storms tackling rapacious extraterrestrials, Commie dictators, costumed crazies and cheap thugs, but these soon gave way to a vast kaleidoscope of fantastic worlds and incredible, mythic menaces, usually tackled with an ever-changing cast of stalwart immortal warriors at his side…

As the ever-expanding Marvel Universe grew increasingly interconnected and matured through its first decade – with characters literally tripping over each other in New York City – Thor’s Asgardian heritage and the soaring imagination of Jack Kirby most often drew the Thunderer away from mortal realms into stunning, unique landscapes and scenarios. Now as the King prepared to leave Marvel again and mostly mainstream comics entirely behind, his successors had room to play with his creations…

Spanning cover-dates January to December 1979, this power-packed compilation re-presents The Mighty Thor #279-290 and Thor Annual #7 & 8. By blending stints on Midgard with cosmic doom and whilst playing with established prophecy, inspired scribe Roy Thomas opens this tome with an engaging Introduction detailing his interest and relationship with Kirby’s other, other Marvel pantheon and discussing The King’s last great contributory concept to the House of Ideas…

Then the comics catastrophes and revelations resume with Thomas, Walt Simonson & Ernie Chan using the extra page count of Thor Annual #7 (cover-dated September 1978 and on sale from June 20th) to detail a forgotten “first contact” moment. After Balder is killed by Loki’s machinations in an attempt to trigger Ragnarok (Thor Marvel Masterworks #17), the Thunder God reluctantly consults hostile prophet Mimir. The flaming seer of the Well of Wisdom instead emphasises how untrustworthy Odin is by telling of an event Thor cannot remember even though it was one of his most significant exploits…

Tale within a tale ‘And Ever …The Eternals!’ reviews the creation of and war between Asgardian and Greek pantheons – which Thor readily recalled – before going on to disclose how the proud prince had continued seeking new mortal worshippers. Roaming Midgard doing heroic deeds, he had encountered and barely defeated a monstrous mind-controlling horror dubbed Dromedan. Moving on, in what would be later called Central America he meets another – unsuspected – god-like race: Polar Eternals Ajak, Druig, Valkin and Virako.

Thor then reexperiences how he learned Midgard was a laboratory preserve of incredible super-gods from space: “Celestials” who had genetically modified proto-hominids to create humanity, Eternals and horrific predatory Deviants. These subspecies had battled for ownership of Earth in wars spanning the length of human existence…

Confronted by such sheer heresy and baffled by obvious nonsense, Thor learns now that his new friends were as treacherous as any god or mortal, with all knowledge of Celestials excised after he and the Eternals defeated a resurgent Dromedan and horde of Deviants and Mutates. Mindwiped, he returned to Asgard, oblivious to the fact that Space Gods would periodically return to judge the progress of their three-pronged project… as indeed they were doing at that very moment under a colossal gleaming dome in Earth’s Andes mountains…

When Kirby’s series debuted in 1976, we met anthropologist Professor Daniel Damien and daughter Margo, whose explorations revealed giant aliens had visited Earth in ages past: sculpting hominid beasts into distinct sentient species – Human Beings; genetically unstable Deviants and god-like superbeings who called themselves Eternals. Moreover, those Space Gods had occasionally returned to check up on their experiment.

Over 19 issues and an Annual, the series avoided true contact with Marvel continuity as modern mankind’s military and moneyed movers-&-shakers dealt with the politics and panic of a world-shattering event. Ikaris (son of Valkin and Virako), Margo, Ajak, Sersi, Makkari, Zuras, Thena, Sprite and Druig fought and foiled Deviants Kro, Brother Tode, Dromedan, Ransak and Karkas with humanity terrified in the background and under the microscope as The Fourth Host of Celestials hovered above the world in a city-sized ship, pondering final judgement: a process that would take 50 years.

Never a comfortable fit with the rest of the Marvel Universe – only S.H.I.E.L.D. ever really got involved – The Eternals further embodied Kirby’s fascination with Deities, the immensity of Space and potential of Supernature through the lens of very human observers. Once the series ended, Kirby moved on and other creators eagerly co-opted his concepts (with mixed success) into the company’s mainstream continuity…

In Mighty Thor #279 (cover-dated January 1978) the new quest is briefly diverted as Don Glut, Alan Kupperberg & Pablo Marcos detail how the Thunderer’s latest exile to Earth results in more reminiscing and “untold tale” ‘A Hammer in Hades!’ After a chance encounter with first love Jane Foster led to her imprisonment in the underworld, Thor flew right into an ambush organised by Loki, Grecian death god Pluto and super-troll Ulik, but proved more than even that trio of terror could handle…

Still preparing to confront the Fourth Host, Thor is again forestalled in #280 where Thomas, Wayne Boring & Tom Palmer pastiche DC’s Annual JLA/JSA summer team-ups with ‘Crisis on Twin Earths!’ after Superman-analogue Mark Milton/Hyperion of the Squadron Supreme requests Thor’s assistance on his own alternate Earth. Sadly, the evil Hyperion of the Squadron Sinister manages to replace his goody-goody doppelganger and a shattering battle erupts before order and dimensional stability is restored…

One last digression came in #281 as Mark Gruenwald, Ralph Macchio, Keith Pollard & Marcos probe continuity in ‘This Hammer Lost!’ Thor prepares for his confrontation with the Celestials by time-travelling to the moment the First Host arrived. However, en route Mjolnir is snatched from him and the Thunderer ends up trapped in Limbo, confronting old foes like the Space Phantom and other chronally adrift threats before he can recover his mallet…

Ambushed and embattled, Thor then faces Time Lord Immortus and temporal tyrant Tempus before escaping in #282’s ‘Rites of Passage’, but only at the cost of one of the greatest weapons in his armoury…

Cover-dated May 1979 (and on sale from February 6th) The Mighty Thor #283 at last proclaims ‘Suddenly… the Celestials!’ as John Buscema & Chic Stone return to art duties for the opening shots of the long-anticipated clash. After a brief, crime-crushing stopover in Mexico City and another savage argument with All-Father Odin, Thor accepts that his sire is somehow complicit in the Celestials’ schemes and presses on to confront them on his own…

When the Andean dome proves utterly impenetrable fortune seems to desert the Asgardian when 2000ft tall Gammenon the Gatherer attacks him whilst seizing a circling passenger jet…

Apparently destroyed in #284, the deity has given way to Dr. Don Blake who sneaks aboard the captured pane and surreptitiously enters ‘The City of the Space Gods!’ Blake befriends Dr. Damien and constant companion Ajak who have observed the Space Gods’ mysterious works for three years now. None are aware the jet also carries an undercover S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and legendary Deviant warrior queen Ereshkigal, who has tormented humans for centuries as Hecate…

Back in Manhattan and unaware of a brutal three-way firefight under the Fourth Host Dome, Ikaris, Margo and Sersi fear the truce they had brokered between the three species is unravelling, even as Thor manages to rescue the jet and its passengers. The effort leaves them all locked outside the Dome as ‘Deviants and Doormen!’ (#285 by Buscema & Stone) opens with Thor back in New York and battling philosopher/poet/gladiator Karkas – a Deviant Mutate who switched allegiance to the Eternals. The misunderstanding is quickly settled, and the warriors unite to track down missing allies Ikaris, Margo, Thena, Ransak & Sersi: a trail taking them deep below the city to an ancient Deviant citadel.

After a ferocious clash with the forces of Warlord Kro and Brother Tode in #286’s ‘Mayhem under Manhattan!’ (Thomas, Stone and new regular penciler Keith Pollard) the citadel is destroyed. Deprived of Asgardian allies, Thor travels with his new friends to the mountain home of the Eternals in hopes of finding someone to help repel the space gods and end their threatened judgement…

With additional material by Gruenwald & Macchio, ‘Assault on Olympia!’ sees Thor very much a stranger in paradise, and challenged by deviously-manipulated Eternal outlaw The Forgotten One, even as many realms away, Sif and Warriors Three Fandral, Volstagg and Hogun undertake a perilous mission for Odin, one bringing them into the deadly grip of abominable dragon Fafnir…

In Olympia the duel escalates into vast brawl involving most of the Eternals, but at its height, Thor and the Forgotten One vanish to reappear miles above at the feet of prime Celestial The One Above All…

Unable and unwilling to stop fighting, the ‘Fury of the Forgotten Hero!’ is only stilled when Thor downs him, but such tactics have no effect on the space god who shows the Prince of Asgard a shocking image: Odin in eons past kneeling in submission before the Third Host…

And in the Nine Realms, Sif and her allies draw closer to the All-Father’s objective, working to complete a scheme none but Odin are aware of…

Shattered by revelations of betrayal Thor is swifty banished by The One Above All, rematerialising in Olympia with The Forgotten One as the tempers begin to cool all around. Meanwhile, Odin voyages to other pantheons to call in old markers in his grand plan and Sif takes control of Asgard’s ultimate Doomsday weapon to defeat and despatch her beloved Thor when the incensed hero tries to storm the Rainbow Bridge in #289’s ‘Look Homeward, Asgardian!’ before Arvel Jones pencils the final chapter of the ongoing epic as ‘Ring Around the Red Bull!’ sees the Thunderer fortuitously crash down in Hollywood in time to save Luchador (costumed Lucha Libre wrestler) Vampiro from ruthless sadistic opponent El Toro Rojo. It’s not as simple as it sounds: the former is an Eternal and Red Bull is a brutal Deviant methodically removing long-lived immortal second stringers from the world before the final battle against the Celestials begins…

Happily Thor is enough to rebalance the odds…

To Be Continued…

Although the unfolding epic pauses here, there’s one last legendary call to battle as The Mighty Thor Annual #8 (1979) depicts ‘Thunder Over Troy!’ as Thomas, Buscema & Tony DeZuñiga (with the help of consultants Don & Maggie Thompson) bring you a refresher course in the classics – specifically The Illiad/Trojan War with a touch of the Aeneid thrown in – as young Thor and Loki are again hurled through time to ancient Greece, with the Thunderer allying with the besieged Trojans whilst his wily stepbrother played it cool as an advisor to cunning strategist Odysseus…

Repeatedly unable to save any of his newfound comrades, the callow arrogant storm god futilely attacks Zeus himself, but it’s a war of Thunder he has no chance of winning.

Augmenting this volume is a full cover gallery by Simonson, Dave Cockrum, Joe Sinnott, Pollard, Palmer, Marcos, Buscema, Bob McLeod, Al Milgrom, Bob Layton & Stone; Thomas’ editorials from The Mighty Thor Annual #7 & 8 and seven fabulous pages of original art and covers from Simonson, Chan, Sinnott, Boring, Palmer, Cockrum & McLeod.

The tales gathered here may lack the sheer punch and verve of the early years but fans of ferocious Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy will find this tome still stuffed with intrigue and action, magnificently rendered by artists who, whilst not possessing Kirby’s vaulting visionary passion, were every inch his equal in craft and dedication, making this a definite and decidedly economical must-read for all fans of the character and the genre.
© 2019 MARVEL.

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Buck Danny volumes 2 & 3: The Secrets of the Black Sea & Ghost Squadron


By Francis Bergése & Jacques de Douhet; colours by Frédéric Bergése: translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebooks)
ISBN: 987-1-84918-018-4 (Album TPB – Black Sea) 987-1-905460-85-4 (Album TPB – Ghost Squadron)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

Buck Danny premiered in Le Journal de Spirou in January 1947 and continues soaring across assorted Wild Blue Yonders to this day. The strip describes the improbably long yet historically significant career of the eponymous Navy pilot and his wing-men Sonny Tuckson and Jerry Tumbler. As one of the world’s last aviation strips the series has always closely wedded itself to current affairs, from the Korean War to Afghanistan, the Balkans to Iran…

The US Naval Aviator was created by Georges Troisfontaines whilst he was Director of Belgian publisher World Press Agency and realised by Victor Hubinon before being handed to multi-talented scripter Jean-Michel Charlier, then working as a junior artist. Charlier’s fascination with human-scale drama and rugged realism had been first seen in such “true-war” strips as L’Agonie du Bismark (The Agony of the Bismarck – published in LJdS in 1946). Charlier and René Goscinny were co-editors of Pistolin magazine from 1955-1958 and subsequently created Pilote in 1959. When they, with fellow creative legend Albert Uderzo, formed the Édifrance Agency to promote the specialised communication benefits of comic strips, Charlier continued scripting Buck Danny and did so until his death. Thereafter his artistic collaborator Francis Bergése (who had replaced Hubinon in 1978) took complete charge of the All-American Air Ace’s exploits, working with other creators like Jacques de Douhet.

Like so many artists involved in aviation storytelling, Bergése (born in 1941) started young with both drawing and flying. He qualified as a pilot whilst still a teenager, enlisted in the French Army and was a reconnaissance flyer by his twenties. At age 23 he began selling strips to L’Étoile and JT Jeunes (1963-1966), after which he produced his first aviation strip – Jacques Renne for Zorro. This was followed by Amigo, Ajax, Cap 7, Les 3 Cascadeurs, Les 3 A, Michel dans la Course and more. Prior to 1983, Bergése was a jobbing artist on comedies, pastiches and WWII strips until he won the coveted job of illustrating globally syndicated Buck Danny with 41st yarn ‘Apocalypse Mission’.

Bergése even found time in the 1990s for episodes of a European interpretation of British icon Biggles before finally retiring in 2008, passing on the reins (control? Joystick? Nope, absolutely not that last one) to illustrators Fabrice Lamy & Francis Winis and scripter Frédéric Zumbiehl. Thus far – with Zumbiehl, Jean-Michel Arroyo & Gil Formosa all taking turns at the helm – the franchise has notched up 60 albums and a further 10 spin-off tomes…

Like all Danny tales, these Cinebook editions are astonishingly authentic: breezily compelling action thrillers. Back in 1994, Buck Danny #45: Les secrets de la mer Noire, delivered a suspenseful, politically-charged action yarn which became the second Cinebook volume, blending mindboggling detail and technical veracity with good old-fashioned blockbuster derring-do.

 

The Secrets of the Black Sea

In-world, it’s 1991 and the dying days of the Soviet Empire. When a submarine incident occurs, the American Chief of Naval Operations dispatches Buck to the newly open Russia of “Glasnost and Perestroika” to ascertain the true state and character of the old Cold War foe. All but ordered to become a spy, Buck is further perturbed by his meeting with ambitious Senator Smight, a US dignitary supposed to be his contact and cover-story on the trip to heart of Communism…

Buck is an old acquaintance and recurring target of the KGB and knows that no matter what the official Party Line might be, many Soviet Cold Warriors have long and unforgiving memories…

No sooner does he make landfall than his greatest fears are realised. Shanghaied to a top secret Russian Naval super-vessel, Buck knows he’s living on borrowed time,: but his death is apparently only a pleasant diversion for the KGB renegade in charge, whose ultimate plans involve turning back the clock and undoing every reform of the Gorbachev administration; gleefully anticipating how the key component to the diabolical scheme will be a conveniently dead American spy in the wrong place at the right time…

Of course, the ever-efficient US Navy swings into action, resolved to rescue their pilot, clean up the mess and deny the Reds any political victory, but there’s only so much Tumbler & Tuckson can do from the wrong side of the recently re-drawn Iron Curtain. Luckily, Buck has some unsuspected friends amongst the renegades too…

Fast-paced, brimming with tension, packed with spectacular air and sea action and delivered like a top-class James Bond thriller, The Secrets of the Black Sea effortlessly catapults the reader into a dizzying riot of intrigue, mystery and suspense in a superb slice of old-world razzle-dazzle that enthrals from the first page to the last panel and shows just why this brilliant strip has lasted for so long.

 

Ghost Squadron

This third sitting offers more of the same fantasy realpolitik in a contemporary war setting. First published in 1996 as Buck Danny #46 L’escadrille fantôme and still a family affair with Frédéric Bergése adding colours to papa’s pictures. It’s 1995 and, above shattered Sarajevo, Tuckson and pioneer female fighter pilot Cindy McPherson patrol as part of the UN Protection Force. UNProFor is the West’s broad but criminally ineffectual coalition to stop various factions in the region butchering each other, but fails hard, big and often…

The overflight takes a dark turn when Cindy’s plane is hit by Serb rockets in contravention of all the truce rules. Incensed, Tuckson peels off to open up with machine gun fire without obtaining the proper permissions. Subsequently nursing McPherson’s burning plane back to their carrier in the Baltic, Sonny doesn’t care how much trouble he’s in, but rather than facing a Court Martial, the impetuous lad’s punishment is rather unique…

Called to interview with the Admiral, the pensive pilot expects at the very least to be thrown as food to the skipper’s vile dog O’Connor, but instead meets enigmatic Mr. Tenderman before being seconded to a top secret “Air Force/Navy Coordination” mission. Wise confidante Buck, meanwhile, is gone, part of an op to locate an unexplained radar echo in an area supposedly neutral and empty…

After wishing Cindy a fond farewell and hinting at his big CIA secret posting, Sonny ships out by helicopter, landing at Prevesa Airbase in Greece. Bewilderment is replaced with terror and rage once he unpacks and discovers O’Connor has stowed away in his kit. Now stuck with the infernal, nastily nipping mutt, Sonny’s screams draw an old friend into his room: maverick test pilot/old partner in peril Slim Holden. That inveterate rulebreaker also has no idea what they’ve been roped into…

Next day the conundrum continues as they and a small group of pilots – also with no idea of why they’re here or where they’re going – are shipped to a secret base in the mountains. After the military’s usual “hurry up and wait” routine, the wary fliers are greeted by a familiar face…

Buck is introduced as Colonel Y by grimly competent General X, and assigns each pilot a number from 1 to 16. The only thing they know is that all have committed serious breaches of military discipline and will have the record wiped clean once the mission is over. Moreover, as long as they’re here, they will refer to each other only by their code numbers…

Awaiting them are unmarked F-16s without radios. They are to train on the jets in preparation for an unspecified single task under the strictest security conditions, until finally apprised of their specified purpose. Days of exhausting preparation and pointless speculation are almost disrupted when an unidentified MiG-29 buzzes the base at extremely low altitude. Although Buck rapidly pursues, the quarry eludes him, but only after the chase reveals their so-secret base as being covertly observed by a radar station on the Albanian border…

With no viable options, Buck returns and training resumes at full pace. Inevitably, the regimen results in fatality. With the warning of more to come before strafing and low-level bombing runs end, the practicing goes on. Rumours mount over what the actual targets of their illicit ground-attack squadron might be…

Back at the official war zone, tensions mount when US Navy F-18s are shot down over Bosnia – apparently by a flight of unidentified jets. At the hidden base, Buck’s security overflights still register radar tracks from an unknown source. Buck and General X have no idea which of the many warring factions might be operating the MiGs and/or mobile radar unit, but have no choice except to proceed with their original plan. They might be far more concerned if they realised that one of the downed – official – combatants was McPherson…

As the situation worsens, word to go is given and the unofficial spectre squadron finally learn what they’re expected to do: take out the armoured concentrations and artillery emplacements relentlessly bombarding Sarajevo. In the face of increasingly obvious NATO and UN impotence, it has been decided that the Pan-Serbian aggressors must be taught a hard lesson about keeping their word regarding cease-fires…

The Ghost squadron’s mission is unsanctioned on paper, with no radio contact and disabled ejector seats. Moreover, they all have permission to respond in kind to any attack – even by American forces…

As the doomed pilots roar across the Adriatic to their targets, the Navy mission to rescue or recover their downed reconnaissance pilots proceeds, and an ever-vigilant AWACS plane picks up the inexplicable bogeys heading for Sarajevo. Of course, they reach the only conclusion possible…

When Major Tumbler and his Flight are despatched after the mystery jets, an inconclusive dogfight leads him to suspect the nature and identities of some of his targets, but after breaking off hostilities the officially sanctioned Navy planes are ambushed by MiGs from a third faction.

Things look grim until NATO support arrives in the form of French Mirages and British Tornados. As the ghosts fly on to complete their punishment run, in the mad scramble behind them Tumbler tracks a MiG that has had enough, and accidentally exposes a hidden Bosnian hangar housing a phantom flight of their own. Sadly, they see him too…

The CIA covert mission is a success and massive catalyst. In the aftermath, planes from many surrounding nations tear up the skies, and in the confusion, Tumbler makes his way from landing point to the MiG base, discovering old enemy and maniac mercenary Lady X running the show. He also learns that a beloved comrade may well be a traitor in her employ, but resolves to save his friend and let the chips fall where they may…

A stunning all-action riot of righteous revenge that grips from the start and only gets more intense, Ghost Squadron confirms just why this brilliant series has endured for generations. Complex politics, intrigue, personal honour and dastardly schemes all seamlessly blend into a breakneck thriller suitable for older kids of all ages, and especially for boys of all ages and gender, the Adventures of Buck Danny is one long, enchanting tour of duty no comics fan, armchair Top Gunner or couch adrenaline-junkie can afford to miss.

Bon chance, mes braves et Chocks Away!
© Dupuis, 1994, 1996 by Bergése. English translation © 2009, 2012 Cinebook Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Daredevil Marvel Masterworks volume 16


By Frank Miller & Klaus Janson, Mike W. Barr, Roger McKenzie, Terry Austin, Paul Smith, Denys Cowan, Fred Hembeck, Paul Gulacy & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-3316-6 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

Matt Murdock is a lawyer obsessed with saving the innocent. Thanks to a childhood nuclear accident he lost his sight but later discovered his remaining senses were hyper-stimulated to a miraculous degree, allowing him to become an astonishing acrobat, formidable fighter and living lie-detector. He also developed a kind of biological radar giving him complete awareness of his local environment.

A second-string hero for most of his early years, Daredevil was nonetheless a striking and popular one, due in large part to the captivatingly humanistic art of Gene Colan. He fought gangsters, a variety of super-villains and even the occasional monster or alien invasion. He quipped and wise-cracked his way through life and life-threatening combat, but under the auspices of Jim Shooter, Roger McKenzie and finally Frank Miller and Klaus Janson, the character transformed into a dark, moody avenger and grim, quasi-religious metaphor of justice and retribution…

Spanning cover-dates August 1981- October 1982, this crucial compilation comprises relevant material from Daredevil #173-181, plus spin-off material generated for a readership that simply could not get enough of the newly darkened avenging devil as seen in Bizarre Adventures #28 and What If? #28, 34 & 35 and material from Marvel Fanfare #1. The visual tumult and tension are preceded by an Introduction from Klaus Janson, detailing his increasing contribution to the character’s arc, and foreshadowing the time when the title would, visually at least, be all his…

When Miller took on authorship in #168 he immediately began remodelling Matt’s past, testing his established relationships and the memory of his murdered father Battling Jack Murdock and created a deadly new former lover in Elektra Natchios, all while putting the damned hero through his paces against archnemesis Bullseye and severely denting the untouchable empire and reputation of evil untouchable Wilson Fisk.

The end result was The Kingpin once more implicitly ruling New York, but enthroned in misery after losing his greatest treasure when his beloved wife Vanessa was blown up and presumed killed during the gang war that followed…

With the city increasingly awash in mobsters, monsters, assassins and deviants, Daredevil 173 returns to the difficult, painful redemption of mentally troubled former foe The Gladiator. Having suffered an emotional crisis Melvin Potter prays his violent old life is over but when a woman is brutalised in the streets, she identifies the supervillain as her attacker. Murdock begins a stout defence of the ‘Lady Killer’, but despite his truth-sensing abilities, even his confidence takes a battering when his own assistant Becky Blake reveals Potter is the man who put her in a wheelchair years ago. Shocked and betrayed on all sides Matt lets DD take charge and discovers a world of horror and abuse as he tracks down a cunning, opportunistic human beast torturing women for kicks…

Elektra co-stars in #174 as her former master The Jonin orders ‘The Assassination of Matt Murdock’, introducing resurrecting zombie ninja cult The Hand, just when the Potter trial is going badly and faithful partner Foggy Nelson has abandoned him. The cult’s official expansion into America is lethally and effectively countered by Elektra, but when Daredevil joins the fight he is wounded, losing his greatest supersense, leaving him to depend on her and Melvin reluctantly returning to his Gladiator persona…

Now targeted by immortal super ninja Kirigi, Elektra goes after the Jonin in ‘Gantlet’ and leaves DD to his own devices. In ‘Hunters’, severely impaired Matt hunts for the old guy who first taught him to use his super senses and rattles his old foes and street sources so badly that even Z-grade thugs Turk and Grotto are prompted to steal a super-armour suit and settle with the Scarlet Swashbuckler for good…

As Elektra finally faces Kirigi, #177 sees Murdock in the brutal care of old hermit Stick; undergoing pitiless trials and torment to regain all that he has lost. The physical and mental abuse triggers hallucinations, flashbacks to his early life and ultimately delirious revelation ‘Where Angels Fear to Tread’…

Meanwhile elsewhere, future Mayor Winston Cherryh is being investigated by Daily Bugle reporter Ben Urich, who uncovers his links to the Kingpin just as a reinvigorated, reunited Nelson & Murdock find a kid with physical proof of Hizzoner’s malfeasance. They recruit Heroes for Hire Luke Cage & Iron Fist as bodyguards whilst Fisk hires the best assassin in town to clean up the impending mess. However, Elektra is deeply conflicted and the resultant ‘Paper Chase’ leaves no winners…

Things get deep and dirty when Elektra sends Urich a warning he’ll never forget, but does put aside after getting a photo of a sewer-dwelling bag lady Wilson Fisk would do anything to know about. As the war of wills mounts she then has to kill the reporter and defeat Matt in ‘Spiked!’, leading the sightless sentinel of the modern hell beneath his city: a community of ‘The Damned’ governed by a barbaric degenerate thug who loses everything to the crimson invader, especially his queen, Vanessa…

Forced to scuttle Cherryh to regain his beloved, Wilson Fisk craves petty vengeance and orders the assassination of Foggy Nelson. Meanwhile, recovered from brain surgery undertaken after his last defeat by Daredevil, Bullseye escapes jail to reclaim his position and title as the world’s deadliest killer for hire. He desperately wants to kill Elektra, and finds himself able to profit from it when she baulks at ending Foggy. The assassins’ brutally balletic dance across New York City ends with her, and Daredevil seeks revenge with the words Bullseye said when he was last captured. “By saving me, everyone I kill from now on is on you”…

Daredevil #181 ‘Last Hand’ (April 1982) is a cinematically styled masterpiece of graphic design reflecting emotional tumult and is one of the best single stories of the era. It also ends the old Daredevil and heralds a new hero to come, but that’s all for another book.

Here, however, the events sparked a number of ancillary delights beginning with spectacular monochrome prequel ‘Elektra’, as crafted by Miller for Bizarre Adventures #28 (October 1981) with the hired killer going off-book after finding out an unsavoury truth about her client. That’s followed by What If? #28 and ‘Matt Murdock, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ by Mike W. Barr, Miller & Janson, exploring what might have been had Anthony Stark and Nick Fury been nearby when Young Matt was hit by that senses-altering radioactive cannister…

Cover dated August 1982, What If? #34 was an all-comedy issue with Miller outrageously expressing the results of answered question ‘What if Daredevil Were Deaf Instead of Blind?’, before the rather self-explanatory ‘What if Bullseye Had Not Killed Elektra?’ (WI? #35, October 1982) by Miller & Terry Austin…

As a special treat, a short Christmas yarn from Marvel Fanfare #1 (March 1982) concludes the comics treats as DD joins a street Santa to save the season for a bunch of orphans in ‘Snow’ by Roger McKenzie, Paul Smith & Austin.

The Miller limned back cover of that issue begins this book’s bonus section, and is followed by Miller’s full Daredevil character bible, written in 1980 as he prepared to take over the writing. A house ad for the Power Man & Iron Fist team-up precedes Fred Hembeck & Miller’s collaboration from Fantastic Four Roast #1 (May 1982) prior to a gallery of fan publication art. The Miller/Janson cover for Amazing Heroes #4 (September 1981) segues into Comics Feature #14 (December 1981) and their wraparound for The Daredevil Chronicles (February 1982) which also reprints the lengthy ‘Frank Miller/Klaus Janson Interview’ conducted by Peter Sanderson, with illos by Hembeck, George Peréz, John Byrne, and Miller & Janson (including a double page pin-up of DD, Black Widow, Black Panther and Elektra).

Joe Rubinstein inked the covers of Marvel Index 9B (listing DD, Black Widow, Black Goliath, Black Panther, Shanna the She-Devil, Dazzler and the Human Fly) and Rick Hoberg rendered the Frontispiece, before Paul Gulacy’s sublime “Good Girl” art Black Widow Portfolio – 6 stunning monochrome plates plus cover – segues into a 20-strong covers and interior page gallery, topped off by Miller & Steve Buccellato’s 2001 cover for Daredevil Visionaries: Frank Miller vol. 2, as well as its Elektra frontispiece, and Diana Schutz’ reminiscing Introduction…

Short sharp, shocking, game-changing, revolutionary and still fantastically readable, these tales kicked open the doors for truly mature comics dramas, whilst promising the true potential of Daredevil was in reach. Their narrative energy and exuberant excitement are dashing delights no action fan will care to miss.

… And the next volume heads full on into darker shadows, the grimmest of territory and the breaking of even more boundaries…
© MARVEL 2022.

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Eagle Classics: The Adventures of P.C. 49


By Alan Stranks & John Worsley (Hawk Books -1990)
ISBN: 978-0-948248-17-7 (album TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Eagle is 75 years old this year and the reason we old farts remember it so fondly are many and various. Here’s just one of them.

On 14th April 1950 Britain’s grey, postwar gloom was partially lifted with the first issue of a glossy new comic that seemingly gleamed with light and colour. Eagle was the most influential comic of the era, running until 26th April 1969, and its legions of mesmerised readers were understandably enraptured with the gloss and dazzle of Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future: a charismatic star-turn venerated to this day. However it also carried a plethora of traditional genre strips, fact and prose regulars. These included both original features and further exploits of some of their favourite radio shows and cinema heroes – and even best beloved gustatory treats!

It was the brainchild of a Southport vicar, the Reverend Marcus Morris, who was worried about the detrimental effects of US comic books on British children. He advocated a good, solid, Christian antidote. Seeking out like-minded creators he jobbed around a dummy to British publishers for over a year – with little success – until he found an unlikely home at Hulton Press, a company producing general interest magazines such as Lilliput and Picture Post. The result was a huge hit that spawned in-house clones Swift, Robin and Girl – targeting other sectors of the children’s market – whilst generating crucial radio series, books, toys and other sorts of merchandising. The Eagle phenomenon reshaped the industry, compelling UK comics colossus Alfred Harmsworth to release cheaper imitations through his Amalgamated Press/Odhams/Fleetway/ IPC group such as the far longer-lived Lion (23rd February 1952 – 18th May 1974) and many companion titles like Tiger and Valiant.

A huge number of soon-to-be prominent creative figures worked on Eagle, and although Dan Dare is deservedly revered as its star, many other strips were as popular at the time, some rivalling the lead in quality and entertainment value. At its peak the periodical sold close to a million copies a week, before changing tastes and a game of “musical owners” killed Eagle. In 1960 Hulton sold out to Odhams, who became Longacre Press. A year later they were bought by The Daily Mirror Group who evolved into IPC. Due to multiple episodes of cost-cutting, many later issues carried Marvel Comics reprints rather than home-originated material. It took time, but the Yankee cultural Invaders won out in the end. In 1969, with the April 26th issue, Eagle merged into Lion, before eventually disappearing altogether. Successive generations revived the title, but never the initial blockbuster success.

In its youth, heydays and prime, Eagle was tabloid sized with photogravure colour inserts, alternating with monochrome pages of text and comic features. Tabloid is a big page, and you can get a lot of material onto each one, so – at the start – something of equal merit deserved almost as much space. One of the biggest draws to Eagle’s mighty pantheon was family radio/film attraction P.C. 49. Although latterly eclipsed by BBC radio colleagues Jeff Arnold/Riders of the Range (whose comic exploits were handled by Charles Chilton & Frank Humphris), and John Ryan’s TV sensation-in-waiting Captain Pugwash and the inimitable Harris Tweed, the unflagging beat copper pre-dated the comic, bringing an established (and frequently older) audience with him. All of them became darlings of other media too via promotional tie-ins such as books, puzzles, toys, games, apparel and comestibles as well as and all other sorts of ancillary merchandising – although the PC had his share of that boodle too…

Dare of course soon overtook them all, especially after acquiring his own weekly radio serial on Radio Luxembourg. The Adventures of Dan Dare played out five nights a week from July 1951 to May 1956…

Preceded by fantastically informative pictorial essay ‘The Many Adventures of P.C.49 – An introduction by Norman Wright’, this epic oversized (330 x 238mm) tribute edition provides background on the radio episodes, both films and all iterations of the comic and prose publishing incarnations of Archibald Berkeley-Willoughby AKA “Fortynine”. That specifically includes how the radio hero progressed from ambitious affable “plod” to proud father and family man after marrying his sassy, smarter, fiancée/crimebusting rival/competitor Joan Carr in the broadcast world, as well as how all that was shunted aside and ignored in comics. Instead from August 1951 Joan vanished and was replaced by an international kid’s gang of juvenile sidekicks – the Boys Club – who would help Fortynine solve crimes if not actually get his longed-for promotion to plainclothes detective…

Initially illustrated by illustrator/gallery artist Charles Sidebotham “Strom” Gould (Storm Nelson) – who limned the first four cases – The Adventures of P.C.49 – from the famous radio series by Alan Stranks began on page 3 of Eagle #1, and ran until March 1957, long after the radio show finished. It featured the daily travails of genial posh berk turned keen as mustard Police Constable Archibald Berkeley-Willoughby as he sought to make progress from beat copper into the serried ranks of plainclothes detectives. This all occurred in Q Division, the sleeziest parts of a major modern metropolis where, despite many weekly triumphs and his immediate uniformed superiors being utterly convinced that “Fortynine” did not have “what it takes”, he proved he did…

Collected here are three yarns by originator Stranks and the strip’s most beloved co-creator. In 1903, Australian Alan Stranks (Dick Barton, Special Agent, Dan Dare- Prisoners of Space) was born in Brunswick, Victoria. Beginning his career in the 1920s as a lyricist – he penned Britain’s very first Eurovision entry “All” – Stranks became a crime reporter before moving to England. He continued in the field but added feature writing and gradually moved sideways into drama; writing novels, radio plays and serials, as well as movies and comics. He died suddenly and without warning from a cerebral haemorrhage in 1959.

The radio Adventures of PC 49 ran (intermittently thanks to Stranks’ increasingly busy schedule) on the BBC Home Service from October 27th 1947 to Summer 1953, just as the astounding John Worsley was making the comic strip one of the most entertaining and enthralling pages in the periodical with his charmingly informative and sublimely expressionistic cartooning style.

Illustrator/Naval war artist, police sketch artist, commercial designer, president of the Royal Society of Marine Artists and certified war hero John Godfrey Bernard Worsley was born on 16th February 1919 in Liverpool and raised in Kenya. After studying at Goldsmiths College of Art he became a travelling artist and portraitist before joining the Royal Navy in WWII. For a fuller assessment of this incredible man go to John Worsley (artist) – Wikipedia or track down John Worsley’s War… or watch the film Albert RN…

For all his other artistic endeavours Worsley is rightly renowned, but we’re here for the comics. His cartooning career began with Tommy Walls in Eagle. An advertising campaign for the ice cream company masquerading as an adventure strip serial, it led to him taking over P.C. 49 from Strom Gould and handling ancillary strips and illustrations for Annuals and Archie’s own line of books. This led to more strips: Daughter of the Nile and Belle Of The Ballet in Girl – reprinted as Lindy of Latmyer Grange in Princess Tina – and the delightful Wee Willie Winkie for Treasure as well as ads, military recruitment materials, books such as The Little Grey Men and The Wind in the Willows, and – his personal favourite – a lavish cartoon interpretation of A Christmas Carol created to support a major television special in 1970. Aged 81, Worsley died on October 3rd 2000.

In lieu of a full P.C. 49 collection or other curated compilations, his gifts live on here as first seen here in seventh serial saga ‘The Case of the Spotted Toad’. This began in the Christmas 1952 issue of Eagle and carried on into May 1953 as the cheery copper is hospitalised by ruthless gangsters Knocker Dawson and Slim Jiggs after saving homeless boy Dickie Duffle and his dog Rip. His eager young pals and Boy’s Club protégées Toby, Mongatiki, Snorky, Gigs & Bunny plus “Terrible Twins” Pat & Mick Mulligan join forces to finish the job of capturing the murderous fur thieves and finding the well-hidden loot, with Archie back on his feet just in time to face the explosive final showdown…

Nervous tyke Bunny and his pocket pet Victor take centre stage in follow up ‘The Case of the Magnificent Mouse’ wherein the nosy nipper sees local tramp Tatty Bogle kidnapped and a perfect duplicate beggar appear. Of course no one believes him but before too long it all unfolds as a major counterfeiting caper run by Lew Lupus and Nix Nobbler. When they snatch Bunny, the police are stumped until the Boys Club lead P.C. 49 to the impenetrable lair of the villains, but in the ends it’s up to Victor to magnificently save the day…

Concluding the casebook, ‘The Case of the Old Crock’ finds the Boys Club preparing for their annual hike/unsupervised holiday at the seaside (because all us Boomer kids were utterly feral and fearless!). Seeing how worn out Archie is thanks to loads of compulsory overtime, the lads use club funds to buy the weary, footsore adult a “car”. Sadly, their choice is not only an appalling fixer-upper, it’s secretly the safe used by master thief Tiger Maggs to stash a map to where he’s buried his carefully hoarded loot. Guess which seaside beach it’s stashed under?

Of course Maggs’ henchmen Junky and Dandy have no idea of the clunker’s real value when they dupe the boys into buying it, but with Scots Boys Club recruit Tam Piper unleashed on it, the junker soon seems roadworthy and eye-catching. Best of all, Bunny has found a map, but he can’t convince anyone that it could lead to pirate treasure…

When Maggs gets out of prison and goes to pick up his car, all hell breaks loose, leading to escalating excitement, another shockingly white-knuckle concatenation of circumstances and a brutally gripping denouement…

Blending genuine tension with schoolboy thrills and genteel police procedurals, The Adventures of P.C. 49 is a true lost gem of British comics, funny, warm, scary, inclusive (as any strip of that period can be), rollercoaster-paced and truly beautiful to see. I can’t see how it will ever be reproduced in full, but I so very much wish it would be. Yet another one to add to “The Why Is This Not In Print?” drawer…
P.C. 49 strip © 1990 Fleetway Publications. This arrangement and Compilation © 1990 Hawk Books.

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Leonard & Larry 4: How Real Men Do It


By Tim Barela (Palliard Press)
ISBN: 978-1884568060 (Album PB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content employed for comedic and dramatic effect.

We live in an era where Pride events are world-wide and commonplace: where acceptance of LGBTQIA+ citizens is a given… at least in all the civilised countries where dog-whistle politicians, populist “hard men” totalitarian dictators (I’m laughing at a private dirty joke right now) and sundry organised religions are kept in their generally law-aware-if-not-actually-abiding places by their hunger for profitable acceptance and desperation to stay tax-exempt, scandal-free, rich and powerful.

There’s still too many places where it’s not so good to be Gay but at least Queer themes and scenes are no longer universally illegal and can be ubiquitously seen in entertainment media of all types and age ranges… and even on the streets of most cities. For all the injustices and oppressions, we’ve still come a long, long way and it’s and simply No Big Deal anymore. Let’s affirm that victory and all work harder to keep it that way…

Such was not always the case and, to be honest, the other team (with most organised religions and minor theological hate-groups proudly egging them on and backing them up) are fighting hard and dirty to reclaim all the intolerant high ground they’ve lost thus far.

Incredibly, all that change and counteraction happened within the span of living memory (mine, in this case). For English-language comics, the shift from illicit pornography to homosexual inclusion in all drama, comedy, adventure and other genres started as late as the 1970s and matured in the 1980s – despite resistance from most western governments – thanks to the efforts of editors like Robert Triptow and Andy Mangels and cartoonists like Howard Cruse, Vaughn Bode, Trina Robbins, Lee Marrs, Gerard P. Donelan, Roberta Gregory, Touko Valio Laaksonen/“Tom of Finland” and Tim Barela.

A native of Los Angeles, Barela was born in 1954, and became a fundamentalist Christian in High School. He loved motorbikes and had dreams of becoming a cartoonist. He was also a gay kid struggling to come to terms with what was still judged illegal, wilfully mind-altering psychosis and perversion – if not actual genetic deviancy – and an appalling sin by his pious peers and close family…

In 1976, Barela began an untitled comic strip about working in a bike shop for Cycle News. Some characters then reappeared in later efforts Just Puttin (Biker, 1977-1978); Short Strokes (Cycle World, 1977-1979); Hard Tale (Choppers, 1978-1979) plus The Adventures of Rickie Racer, and even cooking strip (!) The Puttin Gourmet… America’s Favorite Low-Life Epicurean in Biker Lifestyle and FTW News. Four years later, the cartoonist unsuccessfully pitched a domestic (AKA “family”) strip called Ozone to LGBTQA news periodical The Advocate. Among its proposed quotidian cast were literal and metaphorical straight man Rodger and openly gay Leonard Goldman… who had a “roommate” named Larry Evans…

Gay Comix was an irregularly published anthology, edited at that time by Underground star Robert Triptow (Strip AIDs U.S.A.; Class Photo). He advised Barela to ditch the restrictive newspaper strip format in favour of longer complete episodes, and printed the first of these in Gay Comix #5 in 1984. The remodelled new feature was a big success, included in many successive issues and in 1992 became the solo star of Gay Comix Special #1.

Leonard & Larry also showed up in prestigious benefit comic Strip AIDs U.S.A. before triumphantly relocating to The Advocate in 1988, and from 1990 to rival publication Frontiers. The lovely lads even moved into live drama in 1994: adapted by Theatre Rhinoceros of San Francisco as part of stage show Out of the Inkwell. In the 1990s their episodic exploits were gathered in a quartet of wonderfully oversized (220 x 280 mm) monochrome albums which gained a modicum of international stardom and some glittering prizes. Final compendium How Real Men Do It was released by Palliard Press in 2003, and follows the convoluted, constantly crossing paths of the vast cast until the strip’s painfully abrupt demise…

As previously stated, as well as featuring a multi-generational cast, Leonard & Larry was a strip that progressed in real time, with characters all aging and developing accordingly. The episodes were never about sex – except in that the subject is a constant generator of hilarious jokes and outrageously embarrassing situations. Triumphantly skewering hypocrisy and rebuking ignorance with dry wit and superb drawing, instalments and extended sequences cover various couples’ home and work lives, perpetual parties, physical deterioration, social gaffes, rows, family revelations, holidays and even events like earthquakes and ever imminent anti-gay legislation and even fanciful prognostications.

Following an Introduction from Ron Jackson Suresha and the standard recaps, the highly strung hilarity continues much as it always has…

Leonard Goldman and Larry Evans live together in relatively calm, happily and expressively snide happiness, despite vast family circles and friend groups all at odds with each other. As well as an overwhelming panoply of real life travails and traumas, their existences are complicated by redoubling dreams, weird events and increasingly odd fantasy and dream manifestations, such the ghosts of composers Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky and his bitter frenemy Johannes Brahms who plague many cast members: acting always as the vanguard of even odder occurrences to come…

The interwoven family tapestry is primarily a comedy of manners, played out against social prejudices and changing attitudes to gay life, but also delivers shocking moments of drama and tension and heartwarming sentiment set in and around West Hollywood. The extensive L&L clan comprise Goldman’s formidable, eternally unaccepting mother Esther – who still ambushes him with blind dates and nice Jewish girls – and Mr. Evans’ ex-wife Sharon: mother of Richard and David (the sons of their 18-year marriage).

Whilst still in school Richard knocked up and wed classmate Debbie, making the scrappy loco parentals and Leonard unwilling grandparents years (decades even!) before they were ready. By this stage the oldsters equally adore baby Lauren and little brother Michael…

Maternal grandparents Phil and Barbra Dunbarton are ultra conservative and stridently Christian, spending much time fretting over all those unsaved souls… and their own social standing. They’re particularly concerned over role models and whatever horrors the grandkids are exposed to whenever the gay guys babysit. Their appearances are always some of funniest and most satisfying as the deviant clan expands exponentially, as in this edition when some of Phil’s own youthful indiscretions are exposed, thanks to one of Larry’s cherished and long hoarded 1970’s gay porn magazines that he refused to throw away…

David Evans is as queer as his dad, and works in Larry’s leather/fetish boutique store on Melrose Avenue. That iconic venue provides loads of quick, easy laughs and many edgy moments, thanks to local developer/predatory expansionist Lillian Lynch who still wants the store at any cost and passing trade who all carry secrets of their own.

David also adds to grandparental burden after he and his bestie Collin help their lesbian roommate Nat get pregnant with the net result that our freaked out oldsters become grandfathers yet again…

The store is also the meeting point for many other couples in Leonard & Larry’s eccentric orbit. Close friend and flamboyant former aerospace engineer Frank Freeman lives with acclaimed concert pianist Bob Mendez and is saddled with a compulsive yen for uniforms. It’s previously come in handy whenever Bob’s sex-crazed celebrity stalker Fiona Birkenstock breaks jail to re-kidnap him, but almost every acquaintance brings fresh wonders to the mix.

L&L’s friends and clients all enjoy expanded roles this time, offering other perspectives on LA life, as the cast broadens ever wider, to include a wave of faded starlets, B-movie actors, workmen, contractors and ever more aggressive anti-gay activists…

Larry’s other store employee is Jim Buchanan whose alarming dating history stabilised when he met a genuine cowboy at one of L&L’s parties. Merle Oberon was a newly “out” Texan trucker who added romance and stability to Jim’s lonely life. Sadly, it got complicated in other ways once Merle became a Hollywood soap star and his agents, managers and co-star convinced him his career needed Oberon back in that closet. That extremely long-running plot thread comes to a most satisfactory conclusion here after Merle comes out in the most spectacular stunt TV sitcoms have ever seen, but also brings fresh perils when Merle’s scheming PA Vicky decides to add poor timid Jim to the list of gay men she’s attempted to cure with her bodily allure and ruthless manipulations…

Jim, by the way, was the original and central focus of the overly-critical dead composers’ puckish visits, but now has to share them with so many others. He’s not sorry about that…

As the demanding ghost composers play pranks on more of the minor cast members, their wild games and snarky comments are always balanced by the slow panic of ever-kvetching aging-averse Larry who is painfully refusing to adapt to being a doting grandad/perennial babysitter while observing his failing facilities. Even the local Gym for “his people” don’t want him: apparently hairy men are so last decade. Larry does, however, find some new lease on life when Leonard has the kitchen redone and he meets the burly contractors toiling hard and stripped down to their skivvies in the fierce Melrose summer heat…

Ex-wife Sharon remains a prime source of hilarious woe having been recently “knocked up” at one of Leonard & Larry’s frequent dinner parties thanks to fine wine and their only straight acquaintance (classical violinist Gene Slatkin). Their brief encounter originally sparked incomprehensible jealousy and primeval macho ownership behaviour in Larry, but now his nights attending her geriatric pregnancy have made him an unpaid babysitter for yet another family addition…

As the Millennium approaches, Larry gets extremely house proud and increasingly voyeuristic, but all hopes for “easy eyefuls” and schemes to arrange for good-looking, similarly minded pretty men to move in next door are disasters, leading to shame, humiliation, Leonard’s sustained mockery, minor injury and the world’s worst case of manifest “be careful what you wish for”…

After losing his safe comfy show, Texan star Merle joins the cast of a Sesame Street knock-off where he learns puppets, puppeteers and kids’ entertainers are a breed unto themselves…

With younger players taking centre stage, the author takes every opportunity to spike not just anti-gay bigots but take on good old-fashioned racism and dated ideas too, such as granddaughter Lauren’s inappropriate underwear moment or via gleefully potent pokes at American fundamentalism, as when the “Christian Coalition” relentlessly pursue anti-gay marriage legislation Proposition 22 and seeks to “turn” Larry’s Lauren into a propaganda spouting angel of good…

The series ended on an accidental cliffhanger as Good God-fearing Christians bought the building complex David lived in and started evicting tenants. Just the ones with same-sex roommates of course…

That was where it all ended back then, but see below for an update…

Leonard & Larry was a traditional domestic marital sitcom/soap opera with Lucille Ball & Desi Arnaz – or more aptly, Dick Van Dyke & Mary Tyler Moore – replaced by a hulking bearded “bear” with biker, cowboy and leather fetishes and a stylishly moustachioed, no-nonsense fashion photographer. Taken in total, it’s a love story about growing old together, but not gracefully or with any semblance of dignity. Populated by adorable, appetisingly fully fleshed out characters, the strip was always about finding and then being yourself. It remains an irresistible slice of gentle whimsy to nourish the spirit and beguile the jaded palate. If you feel like taking a Walk on the Mild Side now this tome is still at large through internet vendors. So why don’t you?
How Real Men Do It © 2002, 2004 Palliard Press. All artwork and strips © 2002-2004 Tim Barela. All rights reserved Introduction © 2003 Ron Jackson Suresha.


After decades of waiting, the entire ensemble epic was made available again courtesy of Rattling Good Yarns Press. Hefty hardback uber-compilation Finally! The Complete Leonard & Larry Collection (ISBN: 978-1-955826-05-1) was released in 2021, reprinting the entire saga – including cartoon afterword ‘…Meanwhile Twenty Years Later’ to catch readers up on what happened when the strip shut down. It’s a little smaller in page dimensions (216 x 280mm) and far harder to lift, but it’s Out There if you want it…

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Marvel Masters: The Art of John Romita Sr.


By John Romita Sr. with Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Denny O’Neil, Gary Friedrich, Gerry Conway, Peter David, Roger Stern, J.M. DeMatteis, Frank Giacoia, Mike Esposito, John Verpoorten, Paul Reinman & Tony Mortellaro, Fred Fredericks, Al Milgrom, Dan Green & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-403-4 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Hard to believe that it’s exactly two years since John Romita died. As I wallow in melancholy over the passing of Brian Wilson, and listen to old Beach Boys classics, I can’t help but recall so many summers spent revelling in Romita’s clean cut graphic mastery, tracing his drawings with Pet Sounds and Smiley Smile playing – and especially grooving in my juvenile way to Good Vibrations and Heroes and Villains…

That kind of nostalgia grips like a vice and can only be indulged until something supplants it, so here’s a look at an old British compilation that encapsulates all that whilst reminding us all how much poorer we’ve become in recent time…

One of the industry’s most polished stylists and a true cornerstone of the Marvel Comics phenomenon, the elder John Romita began his comics career in the late 1940s (ghosting for other artists) before striking out under his own colours, eventually illustrating horror and other anthology tales for Stan Lee at Timely/Atlas.

John Victor Romita was Brooklyn born and bred, entering the world on January 24th1930. From Brooklyn Junior High School he moved to the famed Manhattan School of Industrial Art, and graduated in 1947. After spending six months creating a medical exhibit for Manhattan General Hospital in 1949 he moved into comics, working for Famous Funnies. A “day job” working with Forbes Lithograph was abandoned after a friend found him inking and ghosting assignments. Romita was drafted in 1951, and, showing his portfolio to a US army art director, after boot camp at Fort Dix New Jersey, was promoted to corporal, stationed on Governors Island in New York Bay crafting recruitment posters and allowed to live off-base… in Brooklyn. During that period he started doing the rounds and struck up a freelancing acquaintance with Stan Lee at Atlas Comics…

He illustrated horror, science fiction, war stories, westerns, Waku, Prince of the Bantu (in Jungle Tales), a superb run of cowboy adventures starring The Western Kid and 1954’s brief abortive revival of Captain America and more, before an industry implosion derailed his career – and many others. Romita eventually found himself trapped in DC’s romance comics division – a job he hated – before making the reluctant jump again to the resurgent House of Ideas in 1965. As well as steering the career of the wallcrawler and many other Marvel stars, his greatest influence was felt when he official became Art Director in July 1973 – a role he had been doing in all but name since 1968. Romita had a definitive hand in creating or shaping many key characters, such as Mary Jane Watson, Peggy Carter, The Kingpin, The Punisher, Luke Cage, Wolverine, Satana, ad infinitum.

After a brief stint as an inker, Romita took over Daredevil with #12, following on from Wally Wood and Bob Powell. Initially, Jack Kirby provided layouts to help Romita assimilate the style and pacing of Marvel tales but he was soon in full control of his pages. He drew DD until #19, by which time he had been handed the assignment of a lifetime…

We open here with the Captain America story from Tales of Suspense # 77 (May 1966). ‘If a Hostage Should Die!’ was written by Lee, with Kirby layouts and inks from Frank Giacoia (AKA Frank Ray), recounting a moment from the hero’s wartime exploits involving a mysterious woman he had loved and lost, and is followed by a classic Daredevil thriller from #18. ‘There Shall Come a Gladiator!’ introduced an armoured, buzzsaw wielding psychopath in a gripping tale of mistaken identity, by Lee and office junior Denny O’Neil with Giacoia once more handling the pens and brushes.

Up next is that aforementioned Big Break. By 1966 Stan Lee and Steve Ditko could no longer work together on their greatest creation. After increasingly fraught months the artist resigned, leaving the Spider-Man without an illustrator. The new kid was handed the ball and told to run. ‘How Green was my Goblin!’ and ‘Spidey Saves the Day!’ (“Featuring the End of the Green Goblin!” as it so facetiously and unconvincingly proclaimed) was the climactic battle fans had been clamouring for since the viridian villain’s first appearance. It didn’t disappoint and still doesn’t to this day.

Reprinted from issues #39 & 40 (August and September 1966, and inked by old DC colleague Mike Esposito under the pseudonym Mickey Demeo) this is still one of the best Spider-Man yarns ever, and heralded a run of classic sagas by the Lee/Romita team that saw sales actually rise, even after the departure of seemingly irreplaceable Ditko. Another such was the contents of Amazing Spider-Man #47-49.

‘In the Hands of the Hunter!’, ‘The Wings of the Vulture!’ and ‘From the Depths of Defeat!’ saw Romita finally provide pencils and inks (April, May and June 1967), comprising a complex, engrossing thriller featuring Kraven the Hunter and both the old and a new Vultures, as well as detailing a tension building subplot about the gone-but-not-forgotten Green Goblin.

Stan Lee considered Romita a safe pair of hands and “go-to-guy”. When Kirby left to create his incredible Fourth World for DC, Romita was handed the company’s other flagship title – and in the middle of an on-going storyline. Fantastic Four #103 (October 1970) ‘At War With Atlantis!’ is the second chapter in a gripping invasion tale where Magneto blackmails the Sub-Mariner into conquering the surface world with his Atlantean legions (as is so often the case, the first part is not included here, but there are recaps aplenty to bring you up to speed) and with the conclusion ‘Our World.. Enslaved!’ Inked with angular, brittle brilliance by John Verpoorten, they form the first non-Kirby classic of the super-team’s illustrious history. Sadly, the title began a gradual decline soon after…

Romita returned to the Star-Spangled Avenger in the early 1970s and ‘Power to the People’  is the culmination of an extended storyline very much of its time with the Falcon and Nick Fury helping to once again stop the insidious Red Skull. Gary Friedrich scripted Captain America #143 (November 1971) and another new kid was writing the web-spinner when Romita returned. Next comes ‘The Master-Plan of the Molten Man!’ (Amazing Spider-Man #132, May 1974), scripted by Gerry Conway, but the increasingly busy Romita, art directing all Marvel’s titles and projects, was here uncomfortably assisted by Paul Reinman & Tony Mortellaro in the inking of this two-fisted interlude.

Scripted by Peter David with Fred Fredericks inks, ‘Vicious Cycle’ is a quirky, moving short tale from Incredible Hulk Annual #17 (1991), followed by an adventure of Peter Parker’s parents seen in Untold Tales of Spider-Man #-1 (July 1997, and part of the company’s Flashback publishing event). Written by Roger Stern and inked by Al Milgrom, ‘The Amazing Parkers’ pitted the married secret agents against the deadly Baroness and guest-starred a pre-Weapon-X Wolverine in a delightful pacy spy-romp.

In 1997 the Wallcrawler and Daredevil teamed up in Spider-Man/Kingpin: To the Death: a one-shot reuniting Lee & Romita (plus inker Dan Green) for an old fashioned countdown caper to delight older fans, before this book’s narrative delights end with ‘The Kiss’: a trip down memory lane with a much younger Peter Parker still in the throes of first love with Gwen Stacy. Triggering those tears is writer J.M. DeMatteis, and the content proves to me, at least, that Romita’s detested romance stories must be something to see, all his protestations notwithstanding. With a superbly informative biography section from Mike Conroy to close out the volume, this is one of the most cohesive and satisfactory compilations in this series of Marvel Masters. If only they could all be as good…
© 2008 Marvel Entertainment, Inc. and its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved. (A BRITISH EDITION BY PANINI UK LTD)

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The Inhumans Masterworks volume 1


By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, Archie Goodwin, Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, Arnold Drake, Gene Colan, Neal Adams, Mike Sekowsky, Tom Sutton, Joe Sinnott, Vince Colletta, Chic Stone, Tom Palmer, John Verpoorten, Bill Everett, Frank Giacoia & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-41419 (HC) 978-0-7851-4142-6 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Debuting in 1965 and conceived as one more incredible lost civilisation during Stan Lee & Jack Kirby’s most fertile and productive creative period, The Inhumans are a secretive race of phenomenally disparate beings genetically altered by aliens in Earth’s primordial pre-history. They subsequently evolved into a technologically-advanced civilisation far ahead of emergent Homo Sapiens and isolated themselves from the world and barbarous dawn-age humans, first on an island and latterly in a hidden valley in the Himalayas, residing in a fabulous city named Attilan.

The mark of citizenship is immersion in the mutative Terrigen Mists which further enhance and transform individuals into radically unique and generally super-powered beings. The Inhumans are obsessed with order, rank, genetic structure and heritage, worshipping the ruling Royal Family as the rationalist equivalent of mortal gods.

How the hereditary outsiders first impacted the Marvel Universe is gathered in this carefully curated tome which represents early solo-starring appearances from the Tales of the Uncanny Inhumans back-up series in Thor #146-153; a one-off yarn from Marvel Super-Heroes #15; their entire starring run from Amazing Adventures #1-10, plus a guest shot in Avengers #95 collectively spanning the period cover dates November 1967 to January 1972. Also included are a trio of spoof features taken from  Not Brand Echh #6 and 12 (February 1968 and February 1969).

Designed to delight all fanboy truth-seekers, former Kirby assistant and disciple Mark Evanier’s Introduction offers candid and informative behind-the-scenes revelations detailing the true publishing agenda and “Secret Origin of the Inhumans”, before reintroducing the Royal Family of Attilan. Black Bolt, Medusa, Triton, Karnak, Gorgon, Crystal and the rest who would soon become mainstays of the Marvel Universe.

After a plethora of guest shots in The Fantastic Four, the hidden ones began their first solo feature in Thor #146: a series of complete, 5-page vignettes detailing some of the tantalising backstory so effectively hinted at in previous appearances. ‘The Origin of… the Incomparable Inhumans’ (Lee, Kirby & Joe Sinnott) plunges back to the dawn of civilisation with cavemen fleeing in fear from technologically advanced humans who live on an island named Attilan.

In that ancient futuristic metropolis, wise King Randac finally makes a decision to test out his people’s latest discovery: genetically mutative Terrigen rays…

The saga expands a month later in ‘The Reason Why!’ as Earth’s duly-appointed Kree Sentry visits the island and reveals how in ages even further past his alien masters experimented on an isolated tribe of primitive humanoids. Now keen to determine their progress, the menacing mechanoid observes that the Kree’s lab rats have fully taken control of their genetic destiny and must now be considered Inhuman…

Skipping ahead 25,000 years, ‘…And Finally: Black Bolt!’ reveals how a baby’s first cries wreck Attilan and reveal the infant prince to be an Inhuman unlike any other: one cursed with an uncontrollable sonic vibration which builds to unstoppable catastrophic violence with every utterance. Raised in isolation, the prince’s 19th birthday marks his release into the city and close contact with the cousins he has only ever seen on video screens. Sadly, the occasion is co-opted by Bolt’s envious brother Maximus who coldly tortures the royal heir to prove he cannot be trusted. Sadly for the upstart the prince is strong enough for all that comes and prepares for a life determined by his ‘Silence or Death!’

Thor #150 (March 1968) opened a lengthier, continued tale as ‘Triton’ leaves the hidden city to explore the greater human world, only to be captured by a film crew making an underwater monster movie. Allowing himself to be brought to America, the wily manphibian escapes when the ship docks and becomes an ‘Inhuman at Large!’ The series concluded with Triton on the run and a fish out of water ‘While the City Shrieks!’ before returning to Attilan with a damning assessment of the Inhumans’ lesser cousins…

The first Inhuman introduced to the world was the menacing Madame Medusa in Fantastic Four #36: a female super-villain joining team’s antithesis The Frightful Four. This sinister squad comprised evil genius The Wizard, shapeshifting Sandman and gadget fiend The Trapster, and their repeated battles against Marvel’s first family led to the exposure of the hidden race and numerous clashes with humanity.

In 1967, a proposed Inhumans solo series was canned before completion, but the initial episode was retooled and published in the company’s try-out vehicle Marvel Super-Heroes. Scripted by Archie Goodwin and illustrated by Gene Colan & Vince Colletta, ‘Let the Silence Shatter!’ appeared in #15 (July 1968), revealing how the villainous quartet temporarily reunite after the Wizard promises a method for controlling Black Bolt’s deadly sonic affliction in return for Medusa’s services. As usual, the double-dealing mastermind betrays his coerced accomplice, but again underestimates her abilities and intellect, resulting in yet another humiliating defeat…

A few years later, bi-monthly “split-book” Amazing Adventures launched with an August 1970 cover-date and the Inhumans sharing the pages with a new Black Widow series. The big news however was that Kirby was both writing and illustrating the ‘The Inhumans!’ Inked by Chic Stone, the first episode saw the Great Refuge targeted by atomic missiles apparently fired by the Inhumans’ greatest allies, prompting a retaliatory attack on the Baxter Building and pitting ‘Friend Against Friend!’ However, even as the battle raged, Black Bolt takes covert action against the true culprits…

AA #3 sees the uncanny outcasts as ‘Pawns of the Mandarin’ when the devilish tyrant tricks the Royal Family into uncovering a mega-powerful ancient artefact, but he is ultimately unable to cope with their power and teamwork in concluding chapter ‘With These Rings I Thee Kill!’ before issue #5 (March 1971) ushered in a radical change of tone and mood as the currently on-fire creative team of Roy Thomas & Neal Adams took over the strip when Kirby shockingly left Marvel for DC. Inked by Tom Palmer, ‘His Brother’s Keeper’ sees Maximus finally employ a long-dormant power – mind-control – to erase Black Bolt’s memory and seize control of the Great Refuge. The real problem however, is that at the exact moment the Mad One strikes, Black Bolt is in San Francisco on a secret mission. When the mind-wave hits, the stranger forgets everything and as a little boy offers assistance, ‘Hell on Earth!’ (John Verpoorten inks) begins as a simple whisper shatters the docks and the vessels moored there…

As Triton, Gorgon, Karnak & Medusa flee the now utterly entranced Refuge in search of Black Bolt, ‘An Evening’s Wait for Death!’ finds little Joey and the still-bewildered Bolt captured by a radical black activist determined to use the Inhuman’s shattering power to raze the city’s foul ghettoes. A tense confrontation in the streets with the police draws storm god Thor into the conflict during ‘An Hour for Thunder!’, but when the dust settles it seems Black Bolt is dead…

Gerry Conway, Mike Sekowsky & Bill Everett assumed storytelling duties with # 9 as the Inhumans took over the entire book. Reaching America, the Royal Cousins’ search for their king is interrupted when they are targeted by a cult of mutants. ‘…And the Madness of Magneto!’ reveals Black Bolt in the clutches of the Master of Magnetism, who needs the usurped king’s abilities to help him steal a new artificial element. However ‘In His Hands… the World!’ (inked by Frank Giacoia) soon proves that with his memory restored nothing and no one can long make the mightiest Inhuman a slave…

The series abruptly ended there. Amazing Adventures #11 featured a new treatment of graduate X-Man Hank McCoy who rode the trend for monster heroes by accidentally transforming himself into a furry Beast. The Inhumans simply dropped out of sight until Thomas & Adams wove their dangling plot threads into the monumental epic unfolding in The Avengers #89-97 from June 1971 to March 1972.

At that time Thomas’ bold experiment was rightly considered the most ambitious saga in Marvel’s brief history: an astounding saga of tremendous scope which dumped Earth into a cosmic war the likes of which comics fans had never before seen. The Kree/Skrull War set the template for all multi-part crossovers and publishing events ever since…

It began when, in the distant Kree Empire, the ruling Supreme Intelligence was overthrown by his chief enforcer Ronan the Accuser. The rebellion resulted in humanity learning aliens hide among us, and public opinion turned against superheroes for concealing the threat of repeated alien incursions…

A powerful allegory of the Anti-Communist Witch-hunts of the 1950s (and more relevant than ever now that TacoPotUS misrules that benighted land), the epic saw riots in American streets and a political demagogue capitalising on the crisis. Subpoenaed by the authorities, castigated by friends and public, the Avengers were ordered to disband. Sadly omitted here, issue #94 entangled the Inhumans in the mix, disclosing that their advanced science and powers result from Kree genetic meddling in the depths of prehistory. With intergalactic war beginning, Black Bolt missing and his madly malign brother Maximus in charge, the Kree now come calling in their ancient markers…

Wrapping up the dramatic graphic wonderment, ‘Something Inhuman This Way Comes…!’ (Avengers #95, January 1972) coalesces many disparate story strands as aquatic adventurer Triton aids the Avengers against government-piloted Mandroids before beseeching the beleaguered heroes to help find his missing monarch and rescue his Inhuman brethren from the press-ganging Kree…

After so doing, Earth’s Mightiest head into space to liberate their kidnapped comrades and save the planet from becoming collateral damage in the impending cosmos-shaking clash between Kree and Skrulls (a much-collected tale you’d be crazy to miss…).

Appended with creator biographies and House Ads for the Inhumans’ debut, the thrills and chills are topped off with three comedy vignettes. The first, from Not Brand Echh #6 (the “Big, Batty Love and Hisses issue!” of February 1968) reveals how ‘The Human Scorch Has to… Meet the Family!’: a snappy satire on romantic liaisons from Lee, Kirby & Tom Sutton, complimented by ‘Unhumans to Get Own Comic Book’ (Arnold Drake, Thomas & Sutton) and ‘My Search for True Love’ by Drake & Sutton: both from Not Brand Echh #12 (February 1969).

The first of these depicts how other artists might render the series – with contenders including faux icons BOob (Gnatman & Rotten) Krane, Chester (Dig Tracing) Ghoul and Charles (Good Ol’ Charlie…) Schlitz, whilst the second follows lovelorn Medoozy as she dumps her taciturn man and searches for fulfilment amongst popular musical and movie stars of the era…

These stories cemented the outsiders place in the ever-expanding Marvel universe and helped the company to overtake all its competitors. Although making little impact at the time they remain potent and innovative: as exciting and captivating now as they ever were. This is a must-have book for all fans of graphic narrative.
© 1967, 1968, 1970, 1971, 1972, 2017 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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War Picture Library: The Iron Fist


By Hugo Pratt, Val Holding, W. Howard Baker, A. Carney Allen & various (Rebellion Studios/Treasury of British Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-83786-200-9 (HB/Digital Edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Born in Rimini, Ugo Eugenio Prat, AKA Hugo Pratt (June 15th 1927 – August 20th 1995) spent his early life wandering the world, in the process becoming one of its paramount comics creators. From the start his enthralling graphic inventions like initial hit Ace of Spades (in 1945 whilst still studying at the Venice Academy of Fine Arts) were many and varied. His signature character – based in large part on his exotic formative years – is mercurial soldier (perhaps more accurately sailor) of fortune Corto Maltese.

Pratt was a consummate storyteller with a unique voice and a stark expressionistic graphic style that should not work, but so wonderfully does: combining pared-down, relentlessly modernistic narrative style with memorable characters, always complex whilst bordering on the archetypical. After working in Argentinean and – from 1959 – English comics like UK top gun Battler Briton, and on combat stories for extremely popular digest novels in assorted series such as War Picture Library, Battle Picture Library, War at Sea Picture Library and more – Pratt settled in Italy, and later France. In 1967, with Florenzo Ivaldi, he produced a number of series for monthly comic Sgt. Kirk.

In addition to the Western lead star, he created pirate feature Capitan Cormorand, detective feature Lucky Star O’Hara, and moody South Seas saga Una Ballata del Mare Salato (A Ballad of the Salty Sea). When that folded in 1970, Pratt remodelled one of Una Ballata’s characters for French weekly Pif Gadget before eventually settling in with the new guy at legendary Belgian periodical Le Journal de Tintin. Corto Maltese proved as much a Wild Rover in reality as in his historic and eventful career…

In Britain Pratt found rich thematic pickings in the ubiquitous mini-books like Super Picture Library, Air Ace Picture Library, Action Picture Library and Thriller Picture Library: half-sized, 64-page monochrome booklets with glossy soft paper covers containing lengthy complete stories of 1-3 panels per page. These were regularly recycled and reformatted, but the stories gathered here – from War Picture Library #25 (September 1959), #62 (August 1960) & #133 (February 1962) – have only appeared once… until now…

Resurrected and repackaged by Rebellion Studios for their Treasury of British Comics imprint, eponymous opener The Iron Fist is a blistering tale of tank combat scripted by Val Holding, who served in the Parachute Regiment before becoming a War Picture Library stalwart. He also wrote air ace Paddy Payne and became Fleetway’s Managing Editor: Juvenile Publications in 1961.

Opening in October 1942 at the Battle of El Alamein, The Iron Fist traces the service of Corporal Johnny Gray, driver Tug Wilson and radio operator Ken Byrne: “tank jockeys” who, after losing their Sherman tank in opening chapter ‘Out of Action’, are ordered to ferry a prototype of the next generation A.F.V. (Armoured Fighting Vehicle) across the desert at the height of the battle.

Commanded by taciturn, draconian Lieutenant Carson, the lads have no idea that they’re also field testing the colossal war chariot in second chapter, ‘Enter Goliath’…

The trek is a shocking ‘Fight for Survival’, with bloody encounters with German troops and fighter planes supplemented by an infinite variety of natural hazards from heat and sheer exhaustion to dry quicksand!

Gradually warming to their bleakly uncommunicative but strategically superior officer, the team eventually discover Carson’s personal stake in the colossal XT-Eight their lives depend upon and once the mission is successfully completed are all despatched to different postings…

All four are reunited in ‘Beach of Death’ as their combined experiences make them the best qualified instructors of a new tank squadron preparing for D-day, and once that balloon goes up, nothing as trivial as rank can stop them from joining the action on the ground, ultimately culminating in a deadly duel with German cavalry counterpart Panzer Tanks in final chapter ‘Battle of Giants’…

Scripted by W. Howard Baker, the blistering motorised military action is supported here by ‘Stronghold’ from WPL #62 (August 1960): a taut tale of personal enmity and potential murder. Author and journalist Arthur Atwill William “Bill” Baker was born in Cork on October 3rd 1925, not long after the partition and foundation of the nation of Ireland. Despite that, he fought for Great Britain in WWII and after becoming a globetrotting freelance foreign correspondent in the immediate aftermath, moved to and settled in London. He became an editor for Panther books, and wrote many Sexton Blake novels (where he created his secretary Paula Dane) before becoming the franchise editor in 1955. As the Controlling Group Editor at Fleetway, he launched the Air Ace Picture Library line whilst continuing to write content and full stories for War Picture Library. When Fleetway axed Sexton Blake in 1963 Baker acquired all rights and continued the series as an independent publisher under his Howard Baker Books imprint until 1969. Whilst writing genre novels under a bunch of pen names he also embarked on the massive task of reprinting the entire run of classic boys story-paper The Magnet (home of Billy Bunter) but died just short of his epic goal in 1991, having published 1520 of the 1683 issues in hardback collections.

Delivered in pithy, tension-packed chapters ‘First Action’, ‘No-Man’s Land’, ‘Path of Peril’ and ‘The Lucky Coin’, Stronghold is set during the siege of Cassino in 1944, where British Royal Engineers Lance Corporal Tug Wilson (no relation) and sapper Jack Barker fall foul of brutal spiteful Sergeant Burke after a mine sweeping mission goes tragically wrong. As a result, the grudge-bearing thug makes their life hell over succeeding months of bitter fighting even as he terrorises and causes the deaths of his own unit. Increasingly unstable, Burke even “removes” Private Ron Williams after becoming convinced the cheery chap’s good luck piece has made him immune to enemy fire…

The crisis point comes when Burke accidentally leads his remaining troops behind the German lines just as the dramatic end of the siege begins…

Closing accounts here is ‘The Big Arena’ from War Picture Library #133 (February 1962) scripted by A. Carney Allen with Pratt delivering some of his most boldly experimental visuals. Something of an enigma to us today, A. Carney Allen wrote many stories for War Picture Library and Battle Picture Library, and performed similar duties for DC Thomson’s rival line Commando Picture Library – and that’s about all I can tell you about him although as the ripping yarn here concerns Anzac soldiers and feels a little more rowdy that the company’s usual fare, it isn’t hard to speculate that he might have originally come from Oz or New Zealand…

Back in Afrika with Rommel’s Afrika Korps in the crosshairs, The Big Arena features the Second/Ninth Battalion of the Empire, as represented by unruly scamps and veteran killers Lofty Lucas and Chub Doolan. After ‘Over the Hill’ depicts a particularly spectacular clash against Rommel’s tanks and ground troops, the triumphant “Diggers-from-Down-Under” are fully geared up for the leave they’ve been promised, and when again denied it – for the very best of reasons – by platoon commander Lieutenant Brodie, Lucas & Doolan go Absent With Out Leave, determined to find a bar in distant Sidi Barrani and get drunk. Of course the other lads appreciate their feelings and instantly aid and abet their malfeasance…

Things immediately go wrong as ‘Fateful Encounter’ finds the boys bar fighting with other Anzac and Empire soldiers with even military police turning a blind eye until new spit & polish replacement Provost Sergeant Drummond has them arrested and personally drives them to their fate before a military court. That’s when a German counterattack catches them in the open and triggers a ‘Storm in the Desert’. Forced into a broad detour and another campaign-crushing pitched battle, the Diggers unite in a common purpose and find gallantry under fire carries its own rewards…

Packed with powerful, exhilarating action and adventure and exactly what you’d expect from a kids’ comic crafted to sell in the heyday of UK war films commemorating the conflict their parents lived through, this is another bombastic artistic triumph and offers at the end the original eye-catching painted covers: two by Giorgio De Gaspari (War Picture Library #25: September 1959 – ‘The Iron Fist’ & WPL #62: August 1960 –‘Stronghold’) plus one from Biffignandi (War Picture Library #133: February 1962,‘The Big Arena’).

Potent, powerful, genre-blending and irresistibly cathartic, these are brilliant examples of the British Comics experience. If you are a connoisseur of graphic thrills and dramatic tension – utterly unmissable.
© 1959, 1960, 1962, 2021 Rebellion Publishing IP Ltd. All rights reserved.

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You Brought Me the Ocean


By Alex Sanchez, Julie Maroh & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-9081-8 (TPB/Digital edition)

In recent years DC opened up its shared superhero universe to include Original Graphic Novels featuring many of its stars in stand-alone(ish) adventures for the demographic clumsily dubbed Young Adult. To date, results have been rather hit or miss, but when they’re good they are very good indeed.

You Brought Me the Ocean reinterprets the origin of a modern day Aqualad, concentrating on the comic book character’s Gay credentials rather than his costumed career. Crafted by Alex Sanchez (Rainbow Boys; So Hard to Say; The God Box; The Greatest Superpower) and Julie Maroh (Blue is the Warmest Color; Body Music), this dreamily-rendered, salty sea tale details the graduation year of High School student Jake Hyde. He lives in the driest part of New Mexico but constantly dreams of deep-sea kingdoms and fantastic marine adventure…

His mother is a perpetual worrier: an uber/tiger mom always telling him to eat properly, dress appropriately and stay hydrated. Ironically though, ever since his all-but-forgotten dad drowned years ago, she has never let him near large bodies of water or even allowed him to swim…

Always a loner by instinct, Jake’s absolute best friend in the one-horse town of Truth or Consequences (formerly Hot Springs, NM) is Maria Mendez. She has already mapped out their future together and has no idea he yearns for the nautical life or that he has already applied to University of Miami to study Oceanography…

The Mendez’s are neighbours and a second family; far more amenable to Jake’s aspirations of leaving New Mexico, even as his own mother shuts down every attempt to discuss the issue. She’s more concerned with why Jake and Maria haven’t started dating yet. Sadly, Jake has never – ever – thought of her that way, and has resigned himself to going it alone if he wants to realise his ambitions.

One day, things change dramatically as Jake suddenly notices class rebel Kenny Liu. He’s known the strange, outspoken outsider since Middle School, but always stayed well away, painfully aware of the target the outsider’s actions made him. Now though, the bully-defying, openly-Gay swim team star athlete seems irresistibly fascinating…

And apparently, the interest is mutual…

Life changes forever when Jake agrees to accompany Kenny on a hike into the desert. The far more mature misfit has plenty of solid advice – on Maria, leaving town and life choices – but all that is forgotten when a sudden flash-flood interrupts their first kiss and activates tattoo-like birthmarks all over Jake’s body. Suddenly, he starts to glow and project water-warping energies…

With Jake’s world suddenly shaken to flotsam and jetsam, shock follows shock and calamity arrives in its wake. Jake’s attempts to explore his sexuality bring crushing heartbreak and chaos, but even that agony is dwarfed when he comes out to his mom and learns the truth about his father, how he’s connected to superhero Aquaman and one of the most dangerous supervillains on Earth…

Moreover, in the throes of such astounding revelations and an irresistible attraction, it’s too easy to forget that not only metahuman maniacs respond with bigotry and mindless violence to what they deem “unnatural”…

A truly magical treatment exploring the processes of coming out and finding yourself, deftly cloaked in the shiny trappings of costumed heroics, the search for belonging and teen feelings of alienation, You Brought Me the Ocean is an intriguing tale to warm the heart and comes with a contact page detailing Resources available to those affected by the issues explored herein; personal messages from Sanchez & Maroh and an extensive section of designs and drawings from the illustrator’s Sketchbook.

A true triumph of inclusive entertainment that has stood the test of time, You Brought Me the Ocean is a modern classic you must read and should share.
© 2020 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Fox: Freak Magnet


By Dean Haspiel, Mark Waid, JM DeMatteis, Mike Cavallaro, Terry Austin & various (Red Circle Comics/Archie)
ISBN: 978-1-936975-93-8 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times. This book also includes Discriminatory Content included for comedic and literary effect.

In the early days of the US comicbook biz, just after Superman and Batman had ushered in a new genre of storytelling, a rash of publishers jumped onto the bandwagon and made their own bids for cash and glory. Many thrived and many more didn’t, relished only as trivia by sad old blokes like me. Some few made it to an amorphous middle-ground: not forgotten, but certainly not household names either…

MLJ were one of the quickest outfits to pump out a mystery-man pantheon, following the spectacular successes of the Man of Tomorrow and Darknight Detective with their own small but inspirational pantheon of gaudily clad crusaders.

It all began in November 1939 (one month after a little game-changer entitled Marvel Comics #1) with Blue Ribbon Comics #1: content comprising the standard blend of two-fisted adventure strips, prose pieces and gag panels and, from #2 on, costumed heroes. They rapidly followed up with Top-Notch and Pep Comics. However, after only a few years Maurice Coyne, Louis Silberkleit and John Goldwater (hence MLJ) spotted a gap in the blossoming market and in December 1941 nudged aside their masked heroes and action strips to make room for a far less imposing hero; an “average teen” who would have ordinary adventures like the readers, but with triumphs, romance and slapstick emphasised.

Pep #22 (December 1941) featured a gap-toothed, freckle-faced, red-headed goof taking his lead from the popular Andy Hardy movies starring Mickey Rooney. Goldwater developed the concept of a youthful everyman protagonist, tasking writer Vic Bloom and artist Bob Montana with the job of making the concept work. A 6-page tale introduced Archie Andrews and pretty girl-next-door Betty Cooper plus an unconventional best friend/confidante Jughead Jones; all growing up in a small-town utopia called Riverdale.

The feature was an instant hit and by the winter of 1942 had migrated to its own title. Archie Comics #1 was the company’s first solo-star magazine and with it began a metamorphosis of the entire company. With the introduction of rich, raven-haired Veronica Lodge, all the pieces were in play for the comic book industry’s second Genuine Phenomenon (as influential, if not so all-pervasive, as Superman)…

By 1946 the kids had taken over, and MLJ – renamed Archie Comics – retired its heroic characters years before the end of the Golden Age, becoming, to all intents and purposes, a publisher of family comedies. Its success, like Superman’s, changed the content of every other publisher’s titles, and led to a multi-media industry including TV shows, movies, and a chain of restaurants. In the swinging sixties the pop hit Sugar, Sugar (a tune from their animated show) became a global smash, and their wholesome garage band The Archies has been a fixture of the comics ever since.

Nonetheless the company had by this stage also blazed through a rather impressive legion of costumed champions (such as The Shield who predated Captain America by 13 months) who would form the backbone of numerous future superhero revivals, most notably during the High-Camp/Marvel Explosion/Batman TV show-frenzied mid-60’s…

The heroes impressively resurfaced in the 1980s under the company’s Red Circle banner but again failed to catch enough public attention. Archie let them lie fallow – except for occasional revivals and intermittent guest-shots in regular Archie titles – until 1991, when the company licensed its heroes to superhero specialists DC for a magically fun, all-ages iteration (and where’s that star-studded curated collection, huh?!).

Impact Comics was a vibrant, engaging and fun all-ages rethink that really should have been a huge hit but was again incomprehensibly unsuccessful. When the Impact line folded in 1993 the characters returned to limbo until the company had one more crack at them in 2008, briefly and boldly incorporating Mighty Crusaders & Co into DC’s own maturely angst-ridden, stridently dark continuity… with the usual overwhelming lack of success.

In 2012 the company began restoring their superhero credentials with a series of online adventures under the aegis of a revived Red Circle subdivision. They began with The Mighty Crusaders (reinforced by traditional monthly print versions six months later): new costumed capers emphasising fun and action equally welcoming to inveterate fanboys and eager newcomers alike…

Moreover…

One of the company’s most tantalising and oddly appealing Golden Age second stringers was a notional Batman knockoff dubbed The Fox. Debuting in Blue Ribbon #4 (cover dated June 1940, but on sale from March 28th) the feature followed ambitious, go-getting young photojournalist Paul Patton, who initially dressed up as a costumed crusader to get exclusive scoops before inevitably and properly catching the hero-bug and doing his thing for the Right Reasons.

Running until #22 – March 1943 – the first Fox strips were scripted by Joe Blair and drawn by Irwin Hasen (who recycled the timelessly elegant costume design for DC/All American’s pugilistic powerhouse Wildcat in January 1942’s Sensation Comics #1). The dark detective vanished in the wave of Archie’s ascent, until revived as a walk-on in Mighty Crusaders #4 (April 1966). He was particularly well-served during a subsequent 1980s revival when visual narrative genius Alex Toth illustrated many of his new adventures. In 2013 the character – or rather his son – was singled out for solo stardom in the most recent (and mainly digital) Red Circle resurrection.

This superbly riotous collection collects the first story-arc and a few cool on-line extras published in 2013 as the sublimely witty and engaging action-romp The Fox: Freak Magnet #1-5. There was also a second miniseries/sequel collection that we’ll get to in the fullness of time…

As seen in New Crusaders: Rise of the Heroes, this Earth’s masked heroes were generally enjoying a well-deserved retirement in the ideal little city of Red Circle, until tracked down and murdered by old foe The Brain Emperor. Only elderly Joe Higgins was left to save their children and heirs. He shepherded them to safety thanks to a long-established and practised escape plan devised by the Mighty Crusaders and tutored the instant orphans to the eventual attainment of their true potential as heroes in their own right…

Higgins was a lucky choice: the world’s first masked superman and a trusty Shield against all evil and injustice…

At first, all that has very little to do with Paul Patton Jr., who has voluntarily followed in his own father’s footsteps both as a photojournalist and masked mystery man – and for the same venal petty reasons – only to discover that both jobs come at an inescapable price. In his case trouble and insanity always finds him, so he might as well be dressed and ready for the occasions…

Following a Foreword by Mike Allred, the further adventures of The Fox – as imagined by plotter/artist Dean Haspiel and scripter/dialoguer Mark Waid – begin with ‘Freak Magnet part 1: Public Face’ as the reluctant champion accidentally exposes the shady secrets of the world’s most beautiful social media tycoon whilst on a cushy photo assignment. Magnificent Lucy Fur seems to have everything going for her, but the Fox’s infallible gift for stumbling into unfortunate situations soon “outs” the beautiful siren as manic murder-monster Madame Satan…

No sooner has our Roguish Reynard despatched her and caught a breath than he’s accosted by an extradimensional princess in distress, desperately seeking a few good men in ‘Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend’. The frantic Queen of Diamonds has already shanghaied some of Earth’s greatest champions, sending them to save her beloved husband from wicked menace the Druid who has transformed hubby into a ravening monster. Now, however, as her power to fight back – and options – dwindle, she finally arrives at merely mortal but weirdly lucky Patton…

Given no chance to refuse, the fed-up Fox is soon questing through a bizarre world, enduring horrific hallucinations (including his not-so-understanding wife Mae who infrequently suits-up as the savage She-Fox) and a succession of marauding man-things. After he defeats a particularly big beast, it reverts to the battered form of missing pulp hero Bob Phantom…

That issue also began a back-up serial by JM DeMatteis, Mike Cavallaro & Terry Austin, included here as ‘Shield: The Face of Hate part 1 – A Very Cold War’ which finds aged but still vital Joe Higgins in a bar, recounting one of his WWII exploits…

Debuting way back when in Pep Comics #1, Higgins was an FBI scientist who devised a suit which gave him enhanced strength, speed and durability, battling the USA’s enemies as The Shield in the days before America entered WWII. He also devised a serum which enhanced those powers, smashing spies, saboteurs, subversives and every threat to Democracy and decency. This particular old soldier’s yarn concerns a 1944 mission in Antarctica to crush an Axis super-weapon, but which found him facing not just a legion of monsters but also his Nazi and Japanese counterparts Master Race and Hachiman…

Chapter three of Freak Magnet resumed with Haspiel & Waid’s lucky lad wandering through ‘Hell’s Half Acre’ like a Lycra-draped Indiana Jones in Dante’s Inferno; en route defeating and curing lost hero/mutated monster Inferno, the Flame Breather prior to rescuing gun-toting pulp-era vigilante The Marvel from a macabre torture chamber. Unfortunately, once released, the Scourge of Gangland is a wee bit traumatised and can no longer tell friend from foe…

Meanwhile back in World War II, ‘The Face of Hate part 2 – The Enemy of My Enemy’ (DeMatteis, Cavallaro & Austin) sees the sworn enemies’ 3-way battle boil over into berserker rage… until a grotesque horror jumps all three of them…

In the Diamond Dimension of today, whilst Inferno tackles a maddened Marvel, Fox must face the Queen’s ensorcelled husband in ‘The Voodoo You Do’ (Haspiel & Waid), until the nigh-omnipotent Druid takes a personal hand. Happily, at that moment the more-or-less dutiful wives appear, the power of love and sparkly expensive engagement rings having allowed the Queen and Mae to cross the dimensional divide and tip the scales. With the Druid blasted to chunks, Patton believe the madness has subsided for a while… until the Diamond Ruler blasts the Earthlings home and Patton arrives alone in Antarctica, dumped into another insanely dangerous situation…

‘Shield: The Face of Hate part 3 – A Mind of Shattered Glass’ (DeMatteis, Cavallaro & Austin) saw the hate-filled human foes swallow their feelings to unite in combat against an incredible predatory horror which has grown from a fragment of a far greater being destroyed in antiquity and scattered throughout the universe. This entity fed on hate and planned to transform Earth into a world of monsters, but just as it completes its evolution into a new, much more malign and menacing Druid, a black clad, long-eared and annoyingly familiar figure materialises…

The time-tossed twin sagas combine for the epic conclusion ‘Freak Magnet: Future’s End’ (by DeMatteis & Haspiel) as Fox, Shield, Hachiman and Master Race team up: striving together to save humanity and finding themselves forever changed by the cosmic experience.

A fulsome ‘Afterword by Dean Haspiel’ follows and is augmented by one more comics treat as our effulgent everyman crafts a delicious and hilariously thrilling short yarn starring Paul Patten Jr., explaining his choice of cameras in ‘Epilogue: A Picture Lasts Forever’…

This delightful exercise in reviving the fun-filled excitement of comics that don’t think they’re Shakespeare or Orwell also includes such extra inducements as a covers-&-variants gallery (23 in total) from Haspiel and guests Darwyn Cooke, Fiona Staples, Mike Norton, Allen Passalaqua, Paul Pope, Mike & Laura Allred, David Mack, Howard Chaykin, Jesus Aburto, Mike Cavallaro & Alex Toth, as well as a fact-packed ‘Special Feature’ section revealing some of ‘The Fox Files’.

Beginning with the lowdown on the cagy crusaders in ‘Origin of the Freak Magnet’ and ‘She-Fox: The Vivacious Vixen’, there’s even room for bonus featurette ‘Red Circle Heroes: Extra Pulp’, offering character insights and publication histories for ‘Bob Phantom’, ‘Inferno’ and ‘The Marvel’.

… And best yet, there’s a great big tantalising “To Be Continued…”

Full of vim & vigour, this phenomenal Will Eisner-inspired romp delivers no-nonsense, outrageously emphatic superhero hijinks drenched in slick, smart, tried-&-true comic book bombast and outrageous action which manages to feel brand-new whilst simultaneously remaining faithful to all the past iterations and re-imaginings of the assorted superheroes.

Fast, fulfilling and immediately addictive, The Fox should always have been Archie’s long-awaited superhero superstar… and might just yet be the one…

If you yearn for all the uncomplicated fantastic Fights ‘n’ Tights furore of your youth – whenever that was – this is a book you must not miss.
THE FOX ™ & © RED CIRCLE COMICS ® ACP, Inc. The individual characters; names and likenesses are the exclusive trademarks of Archie Comics Publications, Inc. © 2014 Archie Comics Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.