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Positive


By Tom Bouden, translated by Yves Cogneau with Charles “Zan” Christensen (Northwest Press)
ISBN: 978-0-98459409-2 (TPB/Digital edition)

Many things are dangerous and don’t go away just because we stop talking about them. Coincidentally, here’s something short, sweet and utterly, comfortingly satisfying. Please enjoy. BTW: today is HIV Long-Term Survivors Day.

First observed on June 5th 2014 as a day honouring long-term survivors of HIV, and to raise awareness about their needs, issues, and journeys, this day became an annual commemoration as it coincides with the anniversary of the first official reporting of what became known as “the AIDS epidemic” when the US Centre for Disease Control reported five cases of a mysterious disease affecting young gay men on 5th June 1981.

Human Immunodeficiency Virus is a Lentivirus attacking the body’s immune system. If untreated, the infection usually leads to Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome – commonly known as AIDS. For the longest time, the condition was a killer, but can now be controlled quite successfully now through a variety of medications, treatments and necessary lifestyle modification. The biggest dangers remains its ease of transmission and long gestation period. Many sufferers pass it on in a honeymoon period of apparent prime health and sexual activity with no symptoms apparent.

At its height, AIDS ravaged the world, and has killed approximately 38 million people. It also completely changed global society. However, as it hasn’t been a headline grabbing threat for so long and horniness is eternal, across the world – and generations! – infections are on the rise again as a people blithely interact thinking history is dead and can’t hurt them…

Sadly, how those testing positive for HIV were treated also revealed a lot about the people around them. This powerful but truly uplifting graphic tome was created in 2008 by Belgian cartoonist Tom Bouden (Max and Sven, The Importance of Being Earnest, In Bed with David & Jonathan, Queerville): a means of exploding idiotic myths, factually explaining how a positive diagnosis changes the life of someone with the disease and affects those around them.

Subtitled “A Graphic Novelette of Life with Aids”, the charming tale is delivered in traditional, welcoming Ligne Claire style (like Tintin or Blake and Mortimer); laced with warm humour to balance the tension, fear and pain, and begins eight years ago as young marrieds Sarah and Tim’s latest row is interrupted by a visit from their doctor. He has results explaining Sarah’s recent bout of assorted maladies, but needs her to take a second, confirmatory test…

And so begins a methodical, revelatory but worthwhile discourse as the couple carefully share her diagnosis with friends, family and past intimates, contrived with compassion and sensitivity and braced with solid facts throughout. Navigating and negotiating assorted treatments; dealing with mounting work issues and living as normal as life as feasible, Sarah and Tim build support networks while moving ever onward: embracing bucket lists and pill packs, discarding despair and fostering hope until they reach the stage where they can consider the next positive step… having a child…

Fronted by an emphatically positive Introduction from activist and Gay League executive Joe Palmer, this is a lovely, sensible and above all straightforward examination of HIV in the real world. That said, parents might want to review and possibly police some pages if young children are around, as it contains forthright depictions of nudity and lovemaking.
© 2013 Tom Bouden. All rights reserved.

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Fires Above Hyperion


By Patrick Atangan (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-986-1 (TPB/Digital edition)

Might as well face facts: I’m old, opinionated, infirm and easily angered. Thus, as I finish recovering from my latest blue light hospital stay, and rapidly readjust my plans for Pride Week/Month reviews, I’m again compelled to switch to summer re-runs for a few days until normal service can be resumed. First off then, another plug for one of my absolute favourite graphic novels, bar none. If you haven’t seen this one yet, why are we still even talking?

Bad times for human beings, these days. With people daily dying in incalculable numbers, whilst denied the simple solace of friendly or familial contact as the end comes, with most of the world’s leaders continually fumbling the ball and losing their metaphorical bottle as the world dies from commercial abuse and obsessive exploitation: with the haters and bigots proudly – and utterly without a trace of shame – spreading their bile again, it seems odd to moan about comparatively minor issues.

Nevertheless, I’m adding another sin to the list. Perhaps the cruellest, most pitiless of the minor horrors besieging us – as “othering” returns as a method of political advancement and with COVID apparently setting up Round Two of the war against humanity – are increasing threats associated with simply congregating with like-minded friends and hoping to live life their own way. Hypocritically, that’s a right I’d happily deny every racist, homophobe, misogynist and fascist in existence, but hey, I’m “complicated”…

Over millennia, a large proportion of mankind decided (or just didn’t care) that it was okay for men to love men, women to love women – and in fact every flavour of person to enjoy the brief or sustained company of any other person or persons, as long as it was mutually consenting and age appropriate (admittedly those last two have always been a major problem for most men and some women).

I know it’s hard for some to let go of hate and fear, but we’d made a good honest start. Over time people began convening in vast, colourful bustling parades and parties: rowdy affirmations of a struggle that was generally regarded as won. LGBTQ+ folk are resilient and when that happened, carefully adapted and carried on, but some threats don’t end: they just retrench.

It’s long been an aphorism – if not outright cliché – that “gay” comics stories are the only place in the graphic narrative game where true romance still thrives. As far as I can see though it’s still true; an artefact, I suspect, of a society seemingly determined to demarcate and separate sex and love as utterly different and opposite things. I’d like to think that in the 21st century – at least the more civilised bits which actually acknowledge and welcome that times have changed and should STAY changed – we’ve outgrown those juvenile, judgemental, religion-blighted bad old days and can appreciate powerful, moving, wistful, sad and/or funny comics about ordinary people without any kind of preconception. That battle’s still not completely won yet, but hopefully thoughtful, inspirational memoirs such as this will aid the transition…

Californian Patrick Atangan (Songs of Our Ancestors, The Silk Tapestry, Tree of Love, The Yellow Jar, Invincible Days) is a multitalented Filipino-American creator with many strings to his creative bow. He’s as deft and subtle in his computer-generated comic tales and retellings of Asian myths as with the tools he uses to craft high-end designer furniture. Here, to his printed canon for youngsters, he’s added a wry, charming yet deeply moving collection of short intimate musings and recollections on his “romantic gaffes and failures” with the results enough to make the toughest cookie crumble…

Pitched as if Sex and the City had been created by a gay Charlie Brown, these utterly compelling, seditiously humorous slices of a life lived a little too much inside one’s own head kick off with chronological logic as still-closeted Patrick attends his ‘Junior Prom’. The problem is that he is escort to obsessive beard Mildred, whose attention to detail and fierce determination to make the event “absolutely perfect” cannot help but fail. At least the string of disasters the fervent Promzilla endures take the spotlight off his own failings, petty jealousies and perceived inadequacies…

‘Secrets’ skips ahead to the emotional and intellectual liberation of college, as our introvert resolves to reinvent himself. It begins an ongoing process of “Outing” which gradually encompasses friends, family and everybody new in his life. Sadly, that in turn leads to a sort-of romance with Calvin, who never really comes to terms with his own sexual identity…

On leaving academe, another character-building debacle involves ‘Gary’: someone our author judged far too lovely for a dweeb like himself – and therefore something of a self-fulfilling prophecy – before eponymous vignette ‘The Fires Above Hyperion’ turns the screws even tighter. This episode finds Patrick coolly contemplating LA’s now-annual forest fires threatening his stable existence whilst he foolishly attempts to rekindle or reinvent the three-year relationship he has just ended with Roger…

Eschewing his usual ‘New Year’s Eve’ ritual, the narrator then attends a big party and suffers inebriation, gastric trauma and the humiliation of mistakenly putting the moves on a chain-smoking straight guy before ‘APE Shit’ reveals the sorry fallout of a trip to San Francisco to attend his first Alternative Press Expo in a decade: a concatenation of domestic disasters comprising old friends with new children, commuter congestion and a total change in the way Indy comics are sold. At least he connects with gorgeous, seemingly ideal Bryan – before Fate and Patrick’s own conscience play a few pranks to spoil what might have been a perfect moment.

More self-inflicted trauma comes from ignoring the custom of a lifetime and attending a wedding as a ‘Plus One’. Naturally, he didn’t mind his “date” Julia going off with a guy, but when Patrick zeroes in on wonderful, apparently available Peter, events and the author’s own treacherous tuxedo (not a euphemism) conspire to make the soirée memorable for all the wrong reasons…

A heartbreakingly harsh assessment of Patrick’s failings leads to the awful conclusion that he is ‘Nobody’s Type’ before the excoriating romantic recriminations conclude with one more ill-fated, self-sabotaged first date that founders from too much introspection and accumulation of ‘Baggage’…

Insightful, penetrating, winningly self-deprecating, guardedly hopeful and never afraid to be mistaken for morose when occasion demands, this collection of misjudged trysts and missed chances offers a charming glimpse at the eternally hopeful way most folks of every persuasion live their love-lives. The result is magical and unforgettable, making this a must-have item for anyone graced with heart and soul…
© 2015 Patrick Atangan.

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Superman: The Golden Age Dailies 1944 to 1947 (volume 2)


By Alvin Schwartz, Wayne Boring & the Superman Studio (IDW/Library of American Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-68405-197-7 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

The American comic book industry – if it still existed at all – would be utterly unrecognisable without Superman. Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster’s unprecedented invention was first fervidly adopted by a desperate and joy-starved generation, and gave birth to a genre if not an actual art form. Spawning an army of imitators and variations within three years of his 1938 debut, the intoxicating blend of breakneck, breathtaking action and wish-fulfilment epitomising the early Man of Steel grew to encompass cops-&-robbers crimebusting, socially reforming dramas, sci fi fantasy, whimsical comedy and, once the war in Europe and the East sucked in America, patriotic relevance for a host of gods, heroes and monsters, all dedicated to profit through exuberant, eye-popping excess and vigorous, dashing derring-do.

From the outset, in comic book terms Superman was master of the world. Moreover, whilst transforming the shape of the fledgling funnybook biz, the Man of Tomorrow irresistibly expanded into all areas of the entertainment media. Although we all think of the Cleveland boys’ iconic invention as epitome and acme of comics creation, the truth is that very soon after his springtime debut in Action Comics #1 the Man of Steel was a fictional multimedia monolith in the same league as Popeye, Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes and Mickey Mouse. We parochial and possessive comics fans too often regard our purest and most powerful icons in purely graphic narrative terms, but the likes of Batman, Spider-Man, Avengers and their hyperkinetic kind long ago outgrew four-colour origins to become fully mythologized modern media creatures familiar in mass markets, across all platforms and age ranges…

In the last century and even more so in this one, far more people have seen and heard the Man of Steel than have ever read his comic books. These globally syndicated newspaper strips alone were enjoyed by countless millions, and by the time his 20th anniversary rolled around, at the very start of what we call the Silver Age of Comics, he had been a thrice-weekly radio serial star, headlined 17 astounding animated cartoons, become a novel attraction (written by George Lowther) and helmed two feature films. He had then seamlessly segued into the next Big Thing – television. His first smash 8-season live-action show was but the first of many, making Superman a perennial sure-fire success for toys, games, food, puzzle and apparel manufacturers all over the planet.

Although pretty much a spent force these days, for the majority of the previous century the newspaper comic strip was the Holy Grail all American cartoonists and graphic narrative storytellers hungered for. Syndicated across the country – and often the world – a strip feature could be seen by millions if not billions of readers and was generally accepted as a more mature and sophisticated form of literature than comic books. It also – at the start! – paid better, and rightly so. Some of the most enduring, entertaining characters and concepts of all time were devised to lure readers from one particular paper to another and many of the best became cornerstones of a global culture. Mutt and Jeff, Flash Gordon, Dick Tracy, Buck Rogers, Charlie Brown and so many more escaped humble, tawdry newsprint origins to become meta-real: existing in the minds of earthlings from Albuquerque to Zanzibar. Most still do…

The daily Superman newspaper strip launched on 16th January 1939, swiftly augmented by a full-colour Sunday page from November 5th of that year. Originally crafted by luminaries like Siegel & Shuster and their studio (Paul Cassidy, Leo Nowak, Dennis Neville, John Sikela, Ed Dobrotka, Paul J. Lauretta & Wayne Boring), the mammoth task soon required additional talents like strip veteran Jack Burnley and writers including Whitney Ellsworth, Jack Schiff & Alvin Schwartz. The McClure Syndicate feature ran continuously until May 1966, appearing, at its peak, in over 300 daily and 90 Sunday newspapers: a combined average readership of more than 20 million. Eventually, Win Mortimer & Curt Swan joined the unflagging Boring & Stan Kaye, whilst Bill Finger and Siegel also provided stories, telling serial tales largely divorced from comic book continuity throughout years when superheroes were scarcely seen.

This second volume of the Library of American Comics collection continues the vast reprint program begun in the Sterling/Kitchen Sink softcover editions which ceased production in 1999. All of that material – and these books too – are long overdue for re-release and digital editions. Here, however, the never-ending battle resumes with Siegel & Shuster and their helpers ceding control to new creators, but still addressing the World War the USA was close to ending. These sorties in “the never-ending battle” occur over episodes #31-46, pages #1815 through 2594, and publication dates October 30th 1944 to April 26 1947.

We open with an Introduction by Sidney Friefertig, discussing the changes from conflict to reconstruction and sharing why and how the strip aroused the ire of military intelligence and the FBI after casually stepping on the toes of the ultra-top-secret Manhattan Project. All they had wanted was to explore how atomic energy might affect the Action Ace. Also in review is the Man of Tomorrow’s post-war evolution via new scribe (and later poet, novelist and essayist) Alvin Schwartz (1916-2011) in the ever-evolving social stewpot of Metropolis and an increasingly smaller world.

With the majority of material credited to Schwartz (Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Tomahawk, Newsboy Legion, Slam Bradley, House of Mystery, A Date With Judy, Buzzy, Bizarro) and increasingly the sole province of artist Wayne Boring, the compilation kicks off with Episode 31 (strips #1815-1844 as seen between October 30th and December 2nd 1944) and the dilemma of ‘Superman’s Secret Revealed!’ as “World’s Richest Girl” Aline Wail announces her betrothal to the Man of Steel. Nobody is more despondent than Lois Lane or more surprised than Clark Kent, but by the time this genuine teletype typo is spotted, the story has gone global and Aline’s actual fiancé Aubrey Jones has been outed by frantic reporters – including Lois – as the superhero; thanks to a concatenation of accidents and misconceptions…

Sadly, inveterate gambler Aubrey needs to keep the deception going if he’s to pay off his bookies, and plans to cash in by suing Lois and the Daily Planet, until the real Superman steps in to divert and dispel the mounting media madness…

‘Lois Lane, Millionaire’ (strips #1845-1904, December 4th 1944 – February 10th 1945) then details how a murderous lawyer Homer G. Clutch and his virtual slave Mortimer attempt to procure the feisty journalist’s unsuspected inheritance of $3,000,000 from recently departed Grand-uncle Phineas Lane. Of course, to get the cash, Lois must marry within 10 days of receiving the official letter of notification, and account executor Clutch has many ways of intercepting the pay-out. Moreover, when Clark breaks the story, his scoop makes Lois the target of every other chancer and ne’er-do-well in town. They also all make it onto Clutch’s to-do list before Superman – and ironical fate – end Lane’s dreams of idle indolence…

Mundane crime gives way to wild fantasy next as ‘The Obnoxious Ogies’ (#1905-1946, February 12th – March 31st 1945) are annoying heard but not seen. When the invisible fairy pranksters attach themselves to Superman they make his life – and Clark’s – a cacophony of chaos until the Metropolis Marvel concocts something even these puckish pranksters cannot cope with…

Spanning April 2nd to June 23rd, strips #1947-2018 reveal ‘The Science of Superman’ as intractable intransigent physics Professor Ebenezer Duste refuses student Gil Gilmore his degree because the callow youth used clearly fictious examples of a Man of Tomorrow’s power set in his thesis. With his future career and current romance endangered the kid enlists Superman himself but even he cannot convince the sage of his authenticity, until at the height of a spiralling campaign of bizarre stunts, Duste finally finds his opinions shaken by attentive widow Prunella Busby who has her own way of winning an argument…

When a Daily Planet cooking contest prize goes to elderly spinsters Annabelle and Amelia, they parlay the reception into a longed-for meeting with Superman, inadvertently drawing the cataclysmic attention of Extra-Dimensional prankster Mr. Mxyztplk in ‘A Recipe for Disaster’ (June 25th – August 25th, strips #2019-2072)

Eager to impress, the sprite embarks on a career as a chef to win their attention/annoy the pants off his arch enemy and scare all Metropolis witless. It takes all Superman’s ingenuity and large helping of cunning from the old biddies before the Myxy can be convinced to go home again…

Lois finally finds herself ‘Engaged to Superman’ (#2073-2138, August 27th – November 10th) but when she insists that Clark be Best Man it triggers a wave of popular resentment among the city’s women, who protest in the streets and literally strike a blow for romance. As if that weren’t bad enough, mob chief Gaunt suspends all operations until after the wedding, planning to curb Superman’s anti-crime activities by threatening his bride. First, though, he has to marry Lois and the unhappy couple keep postponing the big day…

Domestic screwball comedy gives way to more traditional dramatic fare when Superman must save the Daily Planet – and Clark’s reputation – after a disgruntled employee publishes implausible predictions that Superman must make come true in ‘Phoney Prophecies’ (#2139-2198, November 12th 1945 to January 19th 1946) after which ‘Lois Lane, Editor’ (January 21st – April 6th, strips #2199-2264) confirms her courage, capability and ingenuity when high powered crooks seek to end her crusading crime reporting by seeking to buy her off with a major promotion. However, staunch and valiant, Miss Lane subverts the plot and makes The Daily Sphere a certified success before exposing the villains and negotiating a most rewarding return to the Planet…

A fantastic crimewave heralds the return of super-science bandit Lex Luthor (AKA Dr. Phineas Hackensack) between April 8th and June 1st (#2265-2312) as the villain unleashes ‘The Red Plague’ as a means of getting Superman into his lab and subjecting to a battery of horrific tests all designed to end his life. When all else fails he turns the Man of Steel into a living atomic bomb but once again tastes bitter defeat, after which ‘The Golden Scam’ (June 3rd – July 20th, #2313-2354) sees super conman J. Phineas Foxtrap gulled by his own greed and lose another fortune after selling fake gold bars to suckers with Superman’s approval. Of course, thanks to maverick atomic boffin Dr. Al Kemist, this time the ingots are completely genuine and vile trickster gets a taste of his own medicine…

In ‘Labors of Love’ (#2355-2378; July 22nd to August 17th) Superman again resolves to propose to Lois, but his heartfelt efforts are continually sabotaged by Mr. Mxyztplk, who spitefully decides that she’s actually the only girl in creation fit to be his mate. Cue crazed chaos, calamity and just a little carnage….

The trend towards whimsy and intellectual challenges continued when Lois is ordered to edit the Planet’s “Advice to the Lovelorn” column. She consequently asks our hero to cure a lazy dockside bum of being old, useless and unemployed in ‘Superman Finds a Job’ (#2379-2432; August 19th – October 2nd. He triumphs by inspiring aging wastrel Sam Brodie to discover his true calling and at last take the wrinkly hand of not-so-patient lady love Miss Tillie Crockett, but it’s a close call and takes all his super-wits and a lot of dumb luck…

Pure wickedness informs ‘The Prankster’s Peculiar Premonitions’ (#2433-2462; October 21st – November 23rd) as the lethal Joker-wannabe feigns clairvoyance and prophecy to humiliate Superman and plunder the city, before a war of aerial signwriters breaks out in ‘Sky Pirates’ (November 25th 1946 to January 4th 1947 and instalments #2463-2498) with a rogue pilot instigating a cunning crime wave of the air.

‘Portrait of a Crime’ (January 6th – February 8th; #2499-2528) introduces devious painter Pierre Laguerre who seeks to remove the Man of Steel from action by the strangest of methods, prior to the book concluding on a potent note of social relevancy.

‘Juvenile Delinquency’ (#2529-2594; February 10th to April 26th 1947) finds privileged brat Stanton Gladstone team up with dead-end kid Nicky Darrow to run wild, have fun and teach their respective families a lesson in parenting. However, rowdy rebellion escalates to felony and possibly murder when veteran criminals lead by top thug Big Jim step in to exploit the situation. Now Superman must not only punish the irredeemably wicked but save what remains of the boys’ tarnished innocence…

These yarns offer timeless wonders and mesmerising excitement for lovers of action and fantasy. The raw-boned early Superman is beyond compare and if you can handle the warts of the era or just crave simpler stories from less angst-wracked times, the adventures gathered here are ideal comics reading, and this a book you simply must see.
© 2018 DC Comics. All rights reserved. Superman and all related names, characters and elements are ™ DC Comics.

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The Incredible Hulk Marvel Masterworks volume 14


By Roger Stern, Peter B. Gillis, Elliot S! Maggin, David Michelinie, John Byrne, Roger McKenzie, Sal Buscema, Jim Mooney, Josef Rubinstein, Joe Sinnott, Klaus Janson, Bob McLeod, Mike Esposito, Bob Layton, Bruce Patterson, Chic Stone, Don Perlin & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-2230-6 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Bruce Banner was a military scientist accidentally caught in a gamma bomb blast of his own devising. As a result, stress and other factors cause him to transform into a giant green monster of unstoppable strength and fury. He was one of Marvel’s earliest innovations and first failure, but after an initially troubled few years finally found his size-700 feet and a format that worked, becoming one of the company’s premiere antiheroes and most popular features.

The Gamma Goliath was always graced with artists who understood the allure of shattering action, the sheer cathartic reader-release rush of mighty “Hulk Smash!” moments, and here – following in the debris-strewn wake of Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Marie Severin and Herb Trimpe – Sal Buscema was increasingly showing the world what he could do when inspired and unleashed…

Jointly spanning May 1978 to March 1979, this chronologically complete monster monolith re-presents Incredible Hulk #223-233, plus Hulk Annual #7 and a key crossover from Captain America #230. As ever the comics wonderment is preceded by an Introduction, this time offering curated reminiscences from featured writer Roger Stern.

As important as savage action was dramatic character interplay and, now firmly established and gaining confidence, Stern began an ambitious storyline in #223 (illustrated by Sal & Josef Rubinstein) as ‘The Curing of Dr. Banner!’ sees the monster’s embattled and despondent human half spontaneously purged of the gamma radiation that triggers his changes. However, Banner’s troubles are far from over. Heading to premium anti-Hulk citadel Gamma Base to verify his findings, Bruce discovers the entire facility has been taken over: mind-controlled by his ultimate archenemy…

As the villain makes everyone ‘Follow the Leader!’, psychologist superhero Doc Samson and aged career soldier General Thaddeus Ross escape mind control and physical confinement and beg Banner to again sacrifice his humanity for the sake of mankind. Only the Hulk has ever defeated The Leader and their only hope is to recall and harness his unstoppable fury against the murderous genocidal thought tyrant. Tragically, their halfway measures fail at the final moment and the villain triumphs and has cause to ask ‘Is There Hulk After Death?’

With Bruce seemingly deceased, his compatriots jumpstart his ravaged system with another overwhelming dose of gamma rays and soon everybody involved has cause to regret the resurrection of the original Gamma Goliath, after another ordnance-obliterating clash with the military in #226’s ‘Big Monster on Campus!’ (Stern, Buscema & Joe Sinnott) leads to the man-monster invading his old college and suffering a psychological trauma that might end his rampages forever…

The emotional breakthrough renders the Jade Juggernaut pliable and reasonable and – under extraordinary conditions – Samson becomes ‘The Monster’s Analyst’ (#227, by Stern, Peter B. Gillis Sal B & Klaus Janson). Aided by the Hulk’s recently arrived former sidekick Jim Wilson, the medic probes the psyche of Banner and the beast within, gaining insight into the troubled physicist’s childhood, college days, nuclear accident and turbulent time with the original Avengers line-up. He also triggers a clash of personalities that seems to eliminate Banner utterly…

On that cliffhanger note attention switches to The Incredible Hulk Annual #7 wherein Stern, John Byrne & Bob Layton revisit two semi-retired X-Men as they are targeted by a madly-mutated, mutant-hunting Sentinel Master Mold. This horror then merges with another manic former X-foe in ‘The Evil That is Cast…’ which happily finds our peripatetic pistachio powerhouse on hand to balance the odds when the amalgamated monster attacks Angel and Iceman and drags them into space to die…

Returning to Samson at Gamma Base, the Hulk is targeted by a new menace in #228’s ‘Bad Moon on the Rise!’ (Stern, Gillis, Buscema & Bob McLeod) as psychologist Dr. Karla Sofen offers her therapeutic services, with the intention of subverting the Gamma Goliath to her current employers’ needs…

Within hours of her arrival, Sofen (and her evil alter ego Moonstone) have undone weeks of progress and triggered another deadly rampage. She goes further in #229’s ‘The Moonstone is a Harsh Mistress!’ (inked by Mike Esposito) whilst revealing how she gained her first taste of true power whilst treating an empowered patient: depriving its original inept owner of a power-bestowing lunar rock that made the first Moonstone a match for Captain America. Now she seeks to isolate the Hulk from all human help and contact… and succeeds…

On the run again, the Hulk encounters ‘The Harvester From Beyond!’ (#230 by Elliot S! Maggin, Jim Mooney, Layton & Bruce Patterson), and unwillingly surrenders biological samples to an extremely determined extraterrestrial before returning to Earth in #231, where Stern, Buscema & Esposito introduce a new human outcast to befriend the monster.

In ‘Prelude!’ hippie student Fred Sloan escapes a redneck beating thanks to the Hulk’s intervention, even as, at Gamma Base, Soen makes contact with her employers and learns that evil plutocrat organisation The Corporation counts US Senator Eugene Stivak amongst its ruling elite…

As leaders of a group that has been manipulating heroes including Machine Man, Torpedo, The Falcon, Marvel Man/Quasar, Captain America and S.H.I.E.L.D. for months, the group is now actively pursuing its endgame which means capturing Jim Wilson and subverting the Hulk…

Stivak AKA “Kligger”, makes his move when the Jade Juggernaut and Fred spark a riot in California, neatly dovetailing into a congruent storyline that had been unfolding in the Sentinel of Liberty’s own title. There, the S.H.I.E.L.D. Super-Agent program was infiltrated, Cap was ambushed by The Constrictor and other employees of The Corporation. When Sam Wilson/The Falcon was abducted by Kligger for reasons unknown, the hunt for his partner culminated in Cap exposing the rotten apples in Washington and across the USA, leading to an ‘Assault on Alcatraz!’ (Roger McKenzie, Stern, Sal B & Don Perlin).

With the Star-Spangled Avenger leading former Super Agents Marvel Man and The Vamp to rescue hostage friends and end the Corporation’s depredations, their arrival in the abandoned prison coincides with the capture of the Hulk and Fred, exposure of Corporation West Coast CEO Curtiss Jackson and a trans-continental power-grab by Kligger/Stivak and his merciless agent Moonstone in Captain America #230.

… And that’s when a traitor in the group is revealed and the Hulk completely loses his cool…

The clash continues and concludes in Incredible Hulk #232 as ‘The Battle Below’ (Stern, David Michelinie, Buscema & Esposito) sees the assorted villains thrashed and routed, with Curtiss making a desperate attempt to flee with an absolutely incensed gamma gladiator in hot pursuit. The frantic chase leads to another battle ‘At the Bottom of the Bay!’ (Stern, Buscema & Chic Stone) before the calms down enough to flee with Fred, leading to a reunion with an old and valued friend at a California commune.

To Be Hulk-inued…

With a gallery of covers by Rich Buckler, Ernie Chan, Byrne, Ron Wilson, Rubinstein, Trimpe, McLeod, Dave Cockrum, Layton, Dan Adkins and Al Milgrom, the majority of the bonus section is devoted to a full re-presentation of the 1979 Mighty Marvel Comics Calendar. An all-Hulk affair as the monster enjoyed TV stardom, the item offered tableaux by John Romita Sr., Jack Kirby, Joe Sinnott, Dave Hunt, Walter Simonson, Sal Buscema & Dan Adkins, Cockrum & Layton, George Pérez, John Buscema & Rubinstein, Ron Wilson & Pablo Marcos Keith Pollard & Tom Palmer, Trimpe, Byrne & Terry Austin, Ed Hannigan, Janson and more.

Also on view are a contemporary house ad, Jeff Aclin & Tony DeZuñiga’s covers to Hulk reprint tabloid Marvel Treasury Edition #17 (1978) and feature pages on the calendar taken from company fan mag F.O.O.M. #22 (Autumn 1978). We close with a wealth of original art pages and sketches (by Chan, Sal Buscema, Sinnott, Byrne, Layton, Janson, Cockrum & Esposito) and creator biographies.

The Incredible Hulk is one of the most well-known comic characters on Earth, and these stories, as much as the cartoons, TV shows, games, toys, action figures and movies are the reason why. For an uncomplicated, earnestly vicarious experience of Might actually being Right, you can’t do better than these exciting episodes, so why not Go Green and embrace your inner not-so-mean?
© 2020 MARVEL.

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Gomer Goof volume 12: Twenty-One Goof Salute!


By Franquin, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-161-3 (PB Album/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times and some used for dramatic and comedic effect.

Born in Etterbeek, Belgium on January 3rd 1924, André Franquin began his astounding career in the golden age of European cartooning. In 1946, as assistant to Joseph “Jijé” Gillain on top strip Spirou, he inherited sole control of the keynote feature, going on to create countless unforgettable characters like Fantasio and The Marsupilami. Over two decades Franquin made the strip purely his, expanding its scope and horizons, as co-stars Spirou & Fantasio – with hairy Greek Chorus Spip the squirrel – became globetrotting troubleshooters visiting exotic places, exposing crimes, exploring the incredible and clashing with bizarre, eccentric arch-enemies. Throughout all that, Fantasio remained a full-fledged – albeit entirely fictional – reporter for Le Journal de Spirou, popping back to base between assignments. Regrettably, ensconced there like a splinter under a fingernail was an arrogant, accident-prone office junior tasked with minor jobs and general dogs-bodying. He was Gaston Lagaffe; Franquin’s other immortal – or peut-être unkillable? – conception…

There’s a hoary tradition of comics personalising fictitiously back-office creatives and the arcane processes they indulge in, whether it’s Marvel’s Bullpen or DC Thomson’s lugubrious Editor and underlings at The Beano and Dandy; it’s a truly international practise. Somehow though, after debuting in LJdS #985 (February 28th 1957), the affable dimwit grew – like one of his own monstrous DIY projects – beyond control. Whether guesting in Spirou’s romps or his own strips/faux reports on the editorial pages Lagaffe became one of the most popular and ubiquitous components of the comic he was supposed to paste up.

In initial cameos or occasional asides on text pages, the well-meaning foul-up and ostensible studio gofer Gaston lurked and lounged amidst a crowd of diligent toilers until the workshy slacker employed as a general assistant at LJdS’s head office became a solid immovable fixture. Ultimately the scruffy bit-player inevitably stumbled into his own star feature…

In terms of schtick and delivery, older readers will recognise favourite beats and elements of well-intentioned helpfulness wedded to irrepressible self-delusion as seen in Benny Hill or Jacques Tati vehicles and recognise recurring riffs from Only Fools and Horses and Mr Bean. It’s blunt-force slapstick, using paralysing puns, fantastic ingenuity and inspired invention to mug smugness, puncture pomposity, lampoon the status quoi? (and that’s British punning, see?) and ensure no good deed goes noticed, rewarded or unpunished…

As previously stated, Gaston/Gomer can be seen (if you’re very quick or extremely patient) toiling at Le Journal de Spirou’s editorial offices. At first he reported to Fantasio, but as pressure of work took the hero away, the Goof instead complicated the lives of office manager Léon Prunelle and other harassed and bewildered staffers, all whilst effectively ignoring any tasks he’s paid to actually handle. These notionally include page paste-up, posting packages, filing, clean-up, collecting stuff inbound from off-site and editing readers’ letters – the reason why fans’ requests and suggestions are never acknowledged or answered…

Gomer is lazy, hyperkinetic, opinionated, ever-ravenous, impetuous, underfed, forgetful and eternally hungry: a passionate sports fan, self-proclaimed musician maestro and animal lover whose most manic moments all stem from cutting work corners, stashing or consuming contraband nosh in the office or inventing the Next Big Thing. This situation leads to constant clashes with colleagues and draws in notionally unaffiliated bystanders like increasingly manic traffic cop Longsnoot and fireman Captain Morwater, plus ordinary passers-by who should know by now to keep away from this street.

Through it all, the obtuse office oaf remains affable, easy-going and incorrigible. Only three questions matter: why everyone keeps giving him one last chance, what does gentle, lovelorn Miss Jeanne see in the self-opinionated idiot, and will perpetually-outraged and accidentally abused capitalist financier De Mesmaeker ever get his perennial, pestiferous contracts signed?

Gathering material created between 1980-1982, Gaston – La saga des gaffe became the 14th European album, and the last to use originated material solely by the increasingly troubled genius. Released in translation, it’s Cinebook 12th compilation, offering non-stop, all-Franquin gags and wry observations in formats ranging from single tier and half pagers to extended multi-page yarns.

There’s a preponderance of bitter and bizarre clashes with hard-pressed, long suffering traffic cop Longsnoot (AKA Joseph Longtarin in European editions) that has become known as the “Parking Meter War”, as their protracted clash of ideologies and nerves seemingly reflected Franquin’s mounting ecological concerns and increasingly fraught emotional state and declining mental health.

Here, many strips indulge that struggle via clashes with forces of authority, revealed via encounters with polluters, open support of Greenpeace, advocacy of urban “greening” projects and even anti-military, pro “Save the Whales” episodes, which never forget to be funny as well as trenchant.

The simmering duel with the rulers of the road peaks over many car-based clashes as a cold war involving the million-&-one things that can be done with (and to) parking meters goes into overdrive. This all culminates in the Goof’s invention of mobile dummy replicas of the despised coin collecting taxation-tools, programable roving units and prophetically realistic wandering self-driving robots like those terrorising us all right now…

Other riffs revisited include rare moments of paradise with inexplicably besotted paramour Miss Jeanne, more nigh-deadly diversions with his menagerie (Cheese the mouse, goldfish Bubelle, an adopted feral cat and a black-headed gull) and Gomer’s growing tendency to insomnia or nightmares with real world consequences…

As ever, the forward-looking Goof is blind to the problems his antiquated automobile causes, despite numerous attempts to soup up, cleanse, modify and mollify the motorised atrocity he calls his. The decrepit, dilapidated Fiat 509 is only fit for assisted dying, and here the ultimate improvements are beta-tested, as the boy genius trials super-elastic seat belts and his electric, (barely) roadworthy mobile bedstead – to the shock, awe and horror of all that see it…

Naturally, many moments of chaos still occur at work (if and when he gets there): incidents involving “improved” fire suppression systems, coatracks, photocopiers, recycling schemes and especially the untapped potential of the studio’s new computers…

Our well-meaning, overconfident, overly-helpful know-it-all hindrance invents more stuff making office life unnecessarily dangerous, and continues his pioneering and perilous attempts to befriend and boost fauna and flora alike and improve the modern mechanised world, but this doesn’t leave much time for recreation. Still, there’s time to “master” kitchen bicycle trials and haul out the truly terrifying old Brontosaurophone/Goofophone, and Gomer does make a new enemy after a protracted dispute with the office plumber – an old lag who knows a blowhard meddler when he sees one…

At least lovely Miss Jeanne and forever faithful pal/accomplice Jules-from-Smith’s-across-the-street are still keenly appreciative of his efforts to improve the world, even if it seems at the cost of a few paltry lives, much municipal and private property, the wellbeing of long-suffering Prunelle and eternally frustrated De Mesmaeker …

Dipped in dark mordant wit, but still the funniest French comic ever, isn’t it time you quit being so serious and started Goofing around?
© Dupuis, Dargaud-Lombard s.a. 2009 by Franquin. All rights reserved. English translation © 2025 Cinebook Ltd.

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Pandora in Puzzlevale: The Secret Town (volume 1)


By Paul Duffield, Poqu, Siobhan McKenna & various (Pheonix Comic Books/David Fickling Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78845-349-3 (TPB)

These days, kids are more likely to find their formative strip narrative experiences online or in specially tailored graphic novels rather than the anthological, pick ‘n’ mix of pictorial periodicals that defined my long-dead youth. And yet, once upon a time, the comics industry was a commercial colossus that thrived by producing copious amounts of gaudy, flimsy pamphlets in a multitude of subjects and sub-genres, subdivided into a range of successful, self-propagating, seamlessly self-perpetuating age-specific publications.

These eye-catching items generated innumerable tales and immeasurable delight, designed to entertain, inform and educate tightly-defined target demographics including Toddler/Pre-school, Younger & Older Juvenile, Girls, Boys. General and even Young Teens, but today Britain can barely maintain a few paltry out-industry licensed tie-ins and spin-offs for a dwindling younger readership. Where once cheap and prolific, strip magazines in the 21st century are extremely cost-intensive and manufactured for a highly specific niche market, whilst all those beguiling and bombastic genres that originally fed and nurtured comics are more immediately disseminated via TV, movies and interactive media. There are a few venerable, long-lived holdouts like The Beano & 2000 AD, but overall the trend since the 1970s has been downwards and declining.

That seeming inevitability was happily turned on its head in January 2012 when Oxford-based family publisher David Fickling Books launched The Phoenix: a traditional (seeming) anthology comic weekly aimed at girls and boys between 7 and 14, revelling in those good old days of picture-story entertainment Intent whilst embracing the full force of modernity in style and Content. It has been generating fun, fantasy, educational episodes and wild adventure for kids ever since, scoring many impressive results whilst lifting the standards of comics literature and quality of graphic novels. Each weekly issue still offers humour, adventure, quizzes, puzzles and educational material in a joyous parade of cartoon fun and fantasy and, in the years since its premiere, the comic has gone from strength to strength. It is, most importantly, big and bold, totally tuned in to its contemporary readership and tremendous fun.

The powers that be at the company also understand the sheer wonder of the creative urge and spend a vast amount of time and energy getting readers to have a go themselves: honing their own comics storytelling skills and making their own characters and stories via various outlets cumulatively designated The Phoenix Comics Club.

You can run that by your preferred search engine or just buy this book and access their portal via the enclosed QR code…

Moreover, as established comics companies seem to give up the ghost (in this country at least), old-school prose publishers embraced the graphic novels that evolved to fill their vacated niche. With a less volatile and tenuous business model and far more sustainable long-term goals, book sellers have prospered from magazine makers’ surrender, and there have never been so many and varied cartoon and comics chronicles, compilations and tomes for readers to enjoy. Happily, many of The Phoenix’s superb serials and series have joined that market, having been superbly repackaged as all-ages graphic albums. There are comedy adventures Bunny Vs Monkey, Mega Robo Bros, Toby and the Pixies, Evil Emperor Penguin, Donut Squad, Looshkin, Star Cat, Long Gone Don, Corpse Talk and fantasy dramas like No Country, Tosh’s Island, Tamsin, Pirates of Pangaea, Lost Tales, Troy Trailblazer, Tales of Fayt and The Adventures of John Blake.

The comic has inspired factual series like the award-winning Martin Brown’s Lesser Spotted Animals sequence and an entrancing and absorbing range of puzzle/activity books including Von Doogan and the Curse of the Golden Monkey/The Great Air Race, Bunny vs Monkey: The Whopping World of Puzzles! or How to Make Awesome Comics (With Professor Panels & Art Monkey!), and more…

The one we’re looking at today is Pandora in Puzzlevale: The Secret Town, the first of a serial offering a dazzling display of cartoon virtuosity and brain-busting challenges co-composed by writer/art director Paul Duffield, graphic staging scenarist Poqu and illustrator Siobhan McKenna. A comic strip mystery that operates and progresses by solving assorted tests and conundrums, it all begins in ‘Welcome to Puzzlevale’ as aspiring crimebuster and Detective Crow devotee Pandora is dragged from her comic long enough to realise that the tedious drive to their holiday home has been paused. Although the route to the much-anticipated “secrets-themed” village seemed straightforward, the road is long, winding and confusing. Now, heavy mists are falling and the satnav doesn’t seem to work right anymore…

When Mum and Dad pull up at a petrol station to ask directions, Pandora is fully engrossed in her comic, but eventually she looks up and realises she’s all alone. Her parents are gone…

Thus opens the catalogue of confusion and a casebook of ratiocination and logical deduction as the young girl is drawn deeper and deeper into a program apparently designed to test her physical and mental abilities.

For readers the principle is simple: by accessing the book and selecting a choice of action at a critical moment in each episode, you/Pandora are directed to another page to experience the ramifications of that decision. The final objective is to find her folks and learn the nested secrets of Puzzlevale but it’s you who will be doing much of the work…

In-world, there are people in the mist-shrouded hamlet such as fortune tellers, tea shop staff, rambling bystanders and potential witnesses like gossip Granny Garnett and enigmatic rhymer Rita Idyll – but everyone’s motives and accounts are unverifiable and not to be trusted so Pandora is ultimately left to fend for herself. At least in this very strange and mutable place, she occasionally has Detective Crow by her side and leading her on…

Her methodology includes clue finding, location identification, map-making, maze-defeating, symbol deciphering, wordsearch weaving, witness-statement verifying, code-breaking, rune reading, message translating, riddle-solving, character assessing, crossword completing, key & lock retrieving, object unearthing, back-story compiling and comparison testing as well as frequent odd behaviour explanation, with all facts slowly forming a working hypothesis and eventual plan of action in her trusty ever-present notebook…

But there are so many questions, such as why do the buildings seem to shift, and why do so many villagers wear masks and all-concealing costumes?

Pandora’s quest is divided into 26 sequential ‘Mysteries’ undertaken across five chapters – ‘Welcome to Puzzlevale’, ‘The Curious Crow’, ‘The Mysterious Mask’, ‘The Great Escape’, and ‘The Mists of Change’ – each with its own set of tests and challenges contributing to a Big Picture solution, but even after Pandora completes them all, she’s left with much more to solve and a divergent path to follow…

To Be Continued…

Story! Games! Action! Beguiling mystery unravelled in the manner of multiple-choice decisions and all there in the irresistible shape of entertaining pictures. How much cooler can a book get?

Well, quite a lot actually since this premier tome devotes a bunch of pages to related activities in a swathe of features offered under the aegis of the aforementioned Phoenix Comics Club: tips and snippets by Duffield & McKenna on ‘Drawing Pandora’, and how Poqu crafts the buildings, backgrounds and locations of Puzzlevale, as well as how to construct puzzles, draft alphabets and design symbols, before we conclude for now with a full list of mystery solving clues and hints detailing how it all came about in a closing glimpse at ‘Pandora’s Notes’…

Bring paper, pencils and your intellectual A-game, and have the time of your life…
Text and illustrations © The Phoenix Comic, 2025. All rights reserved.

Pandora in Puzzlevale: The Secret Town will be published on June 5th 2025 and is available for pre-order now.

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Lucky Luke volume 56: Under a Western Sky


By Morris, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-273-7 (Album PB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Lucky Luke was created in 1946 by Belgian animator, illustrator and cartoonist Maurice de Bévère (AKA “Morris”). For years we believed it was for Le Journal de Spirou Christmas Annual (L’Almanach Spirou 1947), before being launched into his first weekly adventure ‘Arizona 1880’ on December 7th 1946. However, eventually it came to light that the strip actually debuted in the multinational weekly comic mid-year, but sans a title banner and only in the French-language edition.

Doughty, rangy, and dashingly dependable, the cowboy is an implacably even-tempered do-gooder who can “draw faster than his own shadow”, amiably ambling around the mythic, cinematically realised Old West, enjoying light-hearted adventures on his petulant, stingingly sarcastic wonder-horse Jolly Jumper. From that natal moment, his exploits in Le Journal de Spirou – and, from 1967, in rival periodical Pilote – have made the sharpshooter a legend of stories across all media and monument of merchandising.

Working solo with occasional script assistance from his brother Louis, Morris produced 10 albums worth of affectionate and thrilling sagebrush parody before formally uniting with René Goscinny, who became regular wordslinger with Des rails sur la Prairie (Rails on the Prairie), commencing in LJdS on August 25th 1955.

They literarily rode together on another 44 albums whilst Luke attained dizzying heights of superstardom. The partnership strengthened as the six-gun straightshooter switched teams, transferring to Goscinny’s own magazine Pilote with La Diligence (The Stagecoach). When Goscinny died, Morris continued both singly and with fresh collaborators. The dream team’s last ride was 1986’s La Ballade des Dalton et autres histoires/The Ballad Of The Daltons and Other Stories.

Eventually Morris invited an inspired band of legacy creators to step in: luminaries including Achdé & Laurent Gerra, Benacquista & Pennac, Xavier Fauche, Jean Léturgie, Jacques Pessis and more, all taking their own shots at the lovable lone rider. Morris died in 2001, having drawn fully 70 adventures, plus an assortment of sidebar and spin-off sagebrush sagas. Since 2016 Julien Berjeaut, AKA Jul (Silex and the City) has tackled the tall tale telling…

Lucky is one of the top-ranked comic characters in the world, having generated 94 albums (if you count spin-off series like Kid Lucky and Ran-Tan-Plan, and numerous artist’s specials) Sales are well north of 300 million in 33 languages and all that renown has translated into a mountain of merchandise, toys, games, animated cartoons, TV shows and live-action movies and even commemorative exhibitions. No theme park yet, but you never know…

Our taciturn trailblazer’s travails draw on western history as much as movie mythology and regularly interacts with historical/mythological figures, as well as even odder fictional folk as authors explore and refine key themes of classic cowboy films – as well as some uniquely European notions and interpretations. As previously hinted, the happy wanderer is not averse to being a figure of political change and Weapon of Mass Satire… but not in this primal, heavily cartoon-short-influenced outing…

We Brits first encountered Lucky Luke in the late 1950s, syndicated to weekly comic Film Fun, and again in 1967 in Giggle, where he blazed trails as Buck Bingo. This collection re-presents the contents of the fourth European album, released in 1952 as Sous le ciel de l’Ouest. Under a Western Sky gathers three short strip serials and opens with ‘The Return of Trigger Joe’ (originally Le Retour de Joe la Gachette, running in LJdS #602-618 between October 27th and 1949-February 16th 1950. Here the lonesome wanderer meets another prairie nomad who’s his match in all cowboy disciplines, and becomes a rather ruthless competitor when they both sign up for the Nugget Gulch horse race. John “The Philanthropist” Smith believes he’s a shoo-in since he’s riding the stolen Jolly Jumper, but the rogue hasn’t counted on Luke’s close relationship with the wonder horse.

Once that scheme fails – but not before extended and manic slapstick shenanigans in the race scenes which also include the usual cinematic cohort of clowns, cheats and chancers – Smith falls back on his old ways as veteran bank robber Trigger Joe. However, his pilfering the prize money only leads to disaster when Lucky trails him deep into the searing desert, and displays an uncanny grasp of a craven villain’s psychology…

Next up is ‘Round Up Days’ which ran in LJdS #619-629 from February 23rd to May 4th 1950 as Jours de round-up. It sees Lucky actually working as a cowboy, hiring on for a cattle round-up (lots of rodeo style comedy here!) before encountering rustlers and cleaning up cow town Bottleneck City…

Closing the proceedings, Le Grand combat (LJdS #630-646; May 11th – August 31st 1950) becomes ‘The Big Fight’ and sees Luke briefly adopt a two-fisted simpleton with the strength of Hercules and a sweetheart in need of marrying and providing for: schooling him in the arts of pugilism for a prize-fight against infamous Killer Kelly. Things go pretty well until bookmaker Slats “Slippery” Nelson attempts to fix the outcome. Thankfully, Lucky is his match in cunning and a faster gun than the gambler’s hirelings and the result is a cartoonishly violent romp celebrating a series of riffs on boxing movies as well as cowboy antics…

These prototypical formative forays of the indomitable hero offer grand joys in the wry tradition of near-contemporary cinema classics like Destry Rides Again or Laurel & Hardy’s Way Out West – perfectly understandable as Morris was a devout fan of the immortal bumblers and their gentle but astonishingly imaginative action-slapstick capers. Superbly executed by a master storyteller, these tales are a wonderful introduction to a unique genre for modern kids who might have missed the allure of a Wild West that never was…
Original edition © Dupuis 1952 by Morris. © Lucky Comics. English translation © 2015 Cinebook Ltd.

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Setting the Standard: Comics by Alex Toth 1952-1954


By Alex Toth, Mike Peppe & various, edited by Greg Sadowski (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-408-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Alex Toth was a master of graphic communication who shaped two different art-forms and is largely unknown in both of them. He died on this day in 2006.

Born in New York in 1928, the son of Hungarian immigrants with a dynamic interest in the arts, Toth was something of a prodigy. After enrolling in the High School of Industrial Arts he doggedly went about improving his skills as a cartoonist. His earliest dreams were of a strip like Milton Caniff’s Terry and the Pirates, but his uncompromising devotion to the highest standards soon soured him on newspaper strip work when he discovered how hidebound and innovation-resistant the family-values based industry had become whilst he was growing up.

Aged 15 he sold his first funnybook works to Heroic Comics and, after graduating in 1947, worked for All American/National Periodical Publications who would amalgamate and evolve into DC Comics. He pursued his craft on Dr. Mid-Nite, All Star Comics, The Atom, Green Lantern, Johnny Thunder, Sierra Smith, Johnny Peril, Danger Trail and a host of other features and on the way dabbled with newspaper strips (see Casey Ruggles: the Hard Times of Pancho and Pecos)… and found that nothing had changed…

Ceaselessly seeking to improve his own work, he never had time for fools or formula-hungry editors who wouldn’t take artistic risks. In 1952 Toth quit DC to work for Thrilling Pulps publisher Ned Pines who was retooling his prolific Better/Nedor/Pines nested comics companies (Thrilling Comics, Fighting Yank, Doc Strange, Black Terror and dozens more) into Standard Comics: a comics house targeting older readers looking for sophisticated, genre-based titles.

Beside fellow graphic masters Nick Cardy, Mike Sekowsky, Art Saaf, John Celardo, George Tuska, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito and particularly favourite inker Mike Peppe, Toth set the bar high for a new kind of story-telling: wry, restrained and thoroughly mature. This quiet revolution took place in a wave of short-lived titles dedicated to War, Crime, Horror, Science Fiction and especially Romance…

After Simon &Kirby invented love comics, Standard – through artists like Cardy and Toth and writers like the amazing and unsung Kim Aamodt – polished and honed the ubiquitous fare of the nascent comics category, delivering clever, witty, evocative and yet tasteful melodramas: heart-tuggers both men and women could enjoy.

Before going into the military, where he still found time to create a strip (Jon Fury for the US army’s Tokyo Quartermaster newspaper The Depot’s Diary), Toth illustrated 60 glorious tales for Standard; as well as a few rare pieces for EC and others. On his return – to a very different industry on the defensive against public antagonism, and one he didn’t much like – Toth split his time between Western/Dell/Gold Key (Zorro and many movie/TV adaptations) and National/DC (assorted short pieces, Hot Wheels and Eclipso): illustrating scripts he increasingly found uninspired, moribund and creatively cowardly. Soon, after drawing X-Men #12 (cover-dated May 1965) over Jack Kirby’s layouts, Toth moved primarily into TV animation. At Hanna-Barbera from 1964 on he designed and storyboarded for shows such as Jonny Quest, Space Ghost, Herculoids, Birdman, Shazzan!, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?, Sealab 2020, Fantastic Four and Super Friends amongst many others.

He returned sporadically to comics, setting the style and tone for DC’s late 1960’s horror line in House of Mystery, House of Secrets and especially The Witching Hour, as well as illustrating more adult fare for Warren’s Creepy, Eerie and The Rook. In the early 1980s Toth redesigned The Fox for Red Circle/Archie, produced stunning one-offs for Archie Goodwin’s Batman and war comics (whenever they offered him a “good script”) and contributed to landmark or anniversary projects like Batman: Black and White.

His later, personal works included Torpedo (look for a fully updated review of the series here soon!) and the magnificently audacious Bravo for Adventure!

Alex Toth died of a heart attack at his drawing board on May 27th 2006.

After reprinting an extensive informative and almost exhaustive interview with the artist from Graphic Story Magazine – conducted by Vincent Davis, Richard Kyle and Bill Spicer in 1968 – this fabulous full colour chronicle then reprints every scrap of Toth’s superb Standard fare beginning with impressive melodrama in ‘My Stolen Kisses’ from Best Romance #5 (February 1952), after which light-hearted combat star Joe Yank nearly lost everything to ‘Black Market Mary’ in the debut issue of his own title (#5 March 1952).

Perhaps a word of explanation is warranted here: due to truly Byzantine commercial and promotional considerations, all Standard Comics premiered with issue #5, although the incredibly successful Romance comics were carried over from their earlier Better Comics incarnations such as New Romances #10 (March 1952) for which Toth illustrated the touching ‘Be Mine Alone’ and the parable of empty jealousy ‘My Empty Promise’ from #11.

The hilarious ‘Bacon and Bullets’ offered a different kind of love in Joe Yank #6 (May) – a very pretty pig named Clementine – after which witty 3-pager ‘Appointment with Love’ (Today’s Romance #6 May) provides a charming palate cleanser before the hard-bitten ‘Terror of the Tank Men’ from Battlefront #5 (June 1952) offers a more traditional view of the then-raging Korean War.

‘Shattered Dream!’ (My Real Love #5 June) is an ordinary romance well told whilst ‘The Blood Money of Galloping Chad Burgess’ (The Unseen #5 June 1952) reveals the sheer quality and maturity of Standard’s horror stories, with ‘The Shoremouth Horror’ (Out of the Shadows #5) from that same month proving Toth to be an absolute master of terror and genius at the pacing and staging needed to scare the pants off you in pictorial form…

‘Show Them How to Die’ (This is War #5 July) is a superbly gung-ho combat classic whilst the eerie ‘Murder Mansion’ and ‘The Phantom Hounds of Castle Eyne’ – both from the August cover-dated Adventures into Darkness #5 – again demonstrate the artist’s uncanny flair for building suspense. The single pager ‘Peg Powler’ (The Unseen #6 September) is reprinted beside the original artwork – which makes me wish the entire collection was available in black & white – after which the highly experimental ‘Five State Police Alarm’ (Crime Files #5) displays the artist’s amazing facility with duo-tone and craft-tint techniques before salutary saga ‘I Married in Haste’ (Intimate Love #19, September) offers a remarkably modern view of relationships.

Science Fiction was the metier of Fantastic Worlds #5 which provided both contemporary ‘Triumph over Terror’ and futuristic fable ‘The Invaders’ to finish off Toth’s September commissions after which ‘Routine Patrol’ and ‘Too Many Cooks’ offer two-fisted thrills from This is War #6 (October). ‘The Phantom Ship’ is a much reprinted classic chiller from Out of the Shadows #6, with October also releasing the extremely unsettling ‘Alice in Terrorland’ from Lost Worlds #5.

Toth only produced four covers for Standard, and the first two, Joe Yank #8 and Fantastic Worlds #6, precede ‘The Boy Who Saved the World’ from the latter (November 1952) after which service rivalry informed ‘The Egg-Beater’ from Jet Fighters #5. The cover of Lost Worlds #6 (December) perfectly introduces the featured ‘Outlaws of Space’, after which the single-page ‘Smart Talk’ (New Romance #14) perfectly closes the first year and sets up 1953 to open strongly with ‘Blinded by Love’ from Popular Romance #22 January) in which the classic love triangle has never looked better…

This was clearly Toth’s ideal year as ‘The Crushed Gardenia’ from Who is Next? #5 shows his incredible skills to their utmost in one of the best crime stories of all time. ‘Undecided Heart’ (Intimate Love #21 February) is a delightful comedy of errors whilst both ‘The House That Jackdaw Built’ and ‘The Twisted Hands’ from Adventures into Darkness #8 perfectly reveal the artist’s uncanny facility for building tension and anxiety. The cover to Joe Yank #10 is followed by splendid aviation yarn ‘Seeley’s Saucer’ from March’s Jet Fighters #7, whilst the clever and racy ‘Free My Heart’ (Popular Romance #23, April) adds new depth to the term “sophisticated” and ‘The Hands of Don José’ (Adventures into Darkness #9) is just plain nasty in the manner horror fans adore. ‘No Retreat’ (This is War #9 May) offers more patriotic combat, but ‘I Want Him Back’ (Intimate Love #22) depicts a far softer, more personal duel whilst ‘Geronimo Joe’ (Exciting War #8 May) proves that in combat there’s no room for rivalry…

Toth was rapidly reaching the acme of his design genius as ‘Man of My Heart’ (New Romances #16 June), ‘I Fooled My Heart’ (Popular Romance #24 July – and reprinted in full as original art in the notes section) and both ‘Stars in my Eyes’ and ‘Uncertain Heart’ from New Romances #17 (August) saw him develop a visual vocabulary to cleanly impart plot and characterisation simultaneously. He often stated he preferred these mature, well-written romance stories for the room they gave him to experiment and expand his craft, and these later efforts prove him right: especially in the moving ‘Heart Divided’ (Thrilling Romances #22) and compelling ‘I Need You’ (September’s Popular Romances #25).

‘The Corpse That Lived’ (Out of the Shadows #10) is a historically based tale of grave-robbing, whilst deeply moving ‘Chance for Happiness’ (Thrilling Romances #23 October) is as powerful today as it ever was. ‘My Dream is You!’ (New Romances #18) turned fresh eyes on the old dilemma of career vs husband and far darker love is depicted in ‘Grip on Life’ (The Unseen #12 November), before true love actually triumphs in ‘Guilty Heart’ (Popular Romance #26). Another ‘Smart Talk’ advice page ends 1953 (New Romances #19) and neatly precedes an edgy affair in ‘Ring on Her Finger’ (Thrilling Romances #24 January 1954), after which ‘Frankly Speaking’ from the same issue leads to terrifying period horror in ‘The Mask of Graffenwehr’ (Out of the Shadows #11).

February saw a fine crop of Toth tales, beginning with charming medical drama ‘Heartbreak Moon’ (Popular Romance #27), spooky mining mystery ‘The Hole of Hell’ (The Unseen #13), 1-page amorous advisory ‘Long on Love’ (Popular Romance #27), lesson in obsession ‘Lonesome for Kisses’ and two more advice pages – ‘If You’re New in Town’ and ‘Those Drug Store Romeos’ – from Intimate Love #26. These last stories were eked out in the months after Toth had left, having been drafted and posted to Japan. However, even though he had (presumably) rushed them out whilst preparing for the biggest change in his young life, there was no loss but a further jump in artistic quality.

One final relationship ‘Smart Talk’ page (New Romances #20 March 1954) precedes a brace of classic mystery masterpieces from Out of the Shadows #12: ‘The Man Who Was Always on Time’ (also reproduced in original art form in the copious ‘Notes’ section at the back of this monumental book) before the graphic wonderment regrettably concludes with the cynically spooky ‘Images of Sand’ – a sinister cautionary tale of tomb-robbing…

After all that, the last 28 pages of this compendium comprise a thorough and informative section of story annotations, illustrations and a wealth of original art reproductions to top off this sublime collection in ideal style.

Alex Toth was a tale-teller and a master of erudite refinement, his avowed mission to pare away every unnecessary line and element in life and in work. His dream was to make perfect graphic stories. He was eternally searching for how to best tell a story, to the exclusion of all else. This long-ignored but still utterly compelling collection shows how talent, imagination and dedication to that ideal can elevate even the most genre-bound vignette into a paragon of form and a mere comic into high art. Get this book, absorb it all and learn through wonder and delight.
All stories in this book are in the public domain but the specific restored images and design are © 2011 Fantagraphics Books. Notes are © 2011 Greg Sadowski and the Graphic Story Magazine interview is © 2011 Bill Spicer. All rights reserved.

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Star Trek Classics volume 5: Who Killed Captain Kirk?


By Peter David, Tom Sutton, Gordon Purcell, Ricardo Villagran & various (IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-61377-831-9 (TPB/Digital edition)

Word came today that we’ve lost another comics giant. Peter Allen David (23rd September 1956 – 24th May 2025) wrote thousands of comics stories, including continuity-changing runs on Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk (which he wrote for 12 years), Aquaman, Supergirl, Captain Marvel, She-Hulk, Scarlet Spider, The Phantom, Young Justice, Dreadstar, X-Factor and Wolverine, as well as notable runs on countless more.

In an industry heavily reliant on adapting media properties, Peter David was the go-to guy for dozens of tie-in titles including all Star Trek books at various companies, Babylon 5, manga import Negima, Halo: Helljumper, Tron and younger reader titles like Powerpuff Girls and Little Mermaid. His television credits include Babylon 5, and animated series like Ben 10 and Young Justice, and Space Cases which he co-created with Bill Mumy.

In comics he created or co-created Spiderman 2099, Fallen Angel, Sachs and Violens, Soulsearchers and Co., SpyBoy, The Atlantis Chronicles and more.

A tireless scribe and popular culture maven, his nigh 100 books include original creations, genre and franchise spin-off  novels for all Star Trek franchises, Babylon 5, Alien Nation, Battlestar Galactica, Swamp Thing, Transformers, novelisations and adaptations, movie, biographies commentary and nonfiction.

Outspoken, ferociously liberal, minority-advocating and never, never boring, he was a master of spit-take comedy moments and crushing emotional body blows in his work, and we are all poorer for his going.

A fuller appreciation and a bunch of stuff I should have got around to reviewing long ago will follows in the weeks to come. Here, however, is a re-review of one of his very best. Go buy this, or indeed anything with his name on it. You won’t be disappointed.

The stellar Star Trek brand and franchise probably hasn’t reached any new worlds yet, but it certainly has permeated every aspect of civilisation here on Earth. You can find daily live-action or animated TV appearances constantly screening somewhere on the planet as well as toys, games, conventions, merchandise, various comics iterations generated in a host of nations and languages and a reboot of the movie division proceeding even as I type this.

Many comics companies have published sequential narrative adventures based on the exploits of Gene Roddenberry’s legendary brainchild, and the splendid 1980s run produced under the DC banner were undoubtedly some of the very finest, especially when scripted by novelist, journalist, screenwriter and all-around comics genius Peter David.

Never flashy or sensational, the series embraced the same storytelling values as the shows, movies and original prose adventures; being simultaneously strongly character- & plot-driven – and starring some of the most well-known (and well-quoted) characters in the world.

An especially fine example is this superior epic, blending spectacular drama, subtle but rational dramatic interplay and good old fashioned thrills, with the added bonus of much madcap whimsy thanks to David’s impassioned fan-pandering efforts…

The swashbuckling space-opera (originally printed in DC’s Star Trek #49-55 and boldly spanning April to October 1988) remains a devotee’s dream, pulling together many prior and ongoing plotlines – albeit in a manner easily accessible to newcomers – to present a fantastic whodunit liberally sprinkled with in-jokes and TV references for über-fans to wallow in.

Illustrated by Tom Sutton & Ricardo Villagran, it began in ‘Aspiring to be Angels’ as, following the aftermath of a drunken shipboard stag night riot (caused by three very senior officers separately spiking the punch), the Enterprise crew discover a rogue Federation ship with impenetrable new cloaking technology is destroying remote colonies in a blatant attempt to provoke all-out war with the Klingons.

At one decimated site they discover a stunted, albino Klingon child who holds the secrets of the marauders, but his traumatised mind will need patience and very special care to coax them out…

Naturally the suspicious, bellicose Klingons also investigating the atrocity want first dibs on the supposed Federation “rebels”, and political tensions mount as Kirk and his embattled opposite number Kron not-so-diplomatically spar over procedure in a ‘Marriage of Inconvenience’. Emotions are already fraught aboard Enterprise. Preparations for a big wedding are suffering last-minute problems and a promising ensign is currently being cashiered for the High Crime of Species Bigotry…

Moreover, unknown to all, a telepathic crew-member has contracted Le Guin’s Disease (that’s one of those in-jokes I mentioned earlier), endangering the entire ship. The crisis point comes with the Federation and Klingon Empire on the verge of open hostilities. Thankfully the renegade ship moves too precipitately and is defeated in pitched battle. However, when Security teams board the maverick ship what they recover only increases the mystery of its true motives and origins…

Taking advantage of a rare peaceful moment, ensigns Kono and Nancy Bryce finally wed, only to be drawn into a ‘Haunted Honeymoon’ as the Enterprise is suddenly beset by uncanny supernatural events, culminating in the crew being despatched to a biblical torture-realm resembling ‘Hell in a Handbasket’. When the effects of the telepathic plague are finally spent, normality returns for the crew, just in time for them to discover Kirk has been stabbed…

Gordon Purcell illustrates ‘You’re Dead, Jim’, with Dr. McCoy swinging into action to preserve the fast-fading life of his friend. Lost in delirium, Kirk is reliving his eventful life and is ready to just let go when Spock intervenes. With the Captain slowly recovering and categorically identifying his attacker, justice moves swiftly. The assailant is arrested and the affair seems open and shut, but ‘Old Loyalties’ deliver a shocking twist to set up a fractious reunion as Kirk’s Starfleet Academy bullying nemesis Sean Finnegan (who first appeared in beloved classic TV episode Shore Leave – as written by the legendary Theodore Sturgeon) arrives to sort everything out…

The senior officer has been sent by the Federation Security Legion to investigate the case, and what he finds in ‘Finnegan’s Wake’ (with Sutton & Villagran reuniting for the epic conclusion) is an astounding revelation upsetting everyone’s firmly held convictions, before unearthing a sinister vengeance scheme decades in the making…

Masterfully weaving a wide web of elements into a fabulous yarn of great and small moments, Peter David crafted one of his best and most compelling yarns in these pages: a tale to rank amongst the greatest Star Trek stories in any medium and one which will please fans of the franchise and any readers who just love quality comics as well as underscoring just how much poorer we are all today.
® and © 2013 CBS Studios, Inc. © 2013 Paramount Pictures Corp. Star Trek and related marks and logos are trademarks of CBS Studios, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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DC Finest: Aquaman – The King of Atlantis


By Robert Bernstein & Ramona Fradon, with Jack Miller, Joe Millard, Otto Binder, George Kashdan, Bob Haney, Nick Cardy, Kurt Schaffenberger, Curt Swan, Jim Mooney, Sheldon Moldoff, Stan Kaye, Charles Paris & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-77952-989-3 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

It’s a big year for comics anniversaries, and we can’t let this guy go unmentioned. This epic compilation is one of the long-awaited DC Finest editions: full colour continuations of their chronolgically curated monochrome Showcase Presents line, delivering “affordably priced, large-size (comic book dimensions and generally around 600 pages) paperback collections”. Whilst primarily and understandably concentrating on superheroes, later releases will also cover genre selections like horror and war books, and themed compendia. Sadly, they’re not yet available digitally, as were the last decade’s Bronze, Silver & Golden Age collections, but we live in hope…

Aquaman is that oddest of comic book phenomena: a survivor. One of the few superheroes to carry on in unbroken exploits since the Golden Age, the Sea King has endured endless cancellations, reboots and makeovers in the name of trendy relevance and fickle fashion but has somehow always recovered: coming back fresher, stronger and more intriguing. He’s also one of the earliest comic champions to make the jump to cartoon TV stardom…

Created by Mort Weisinger & Paul Norris, Aquaman began his reign in in the wake of and in response to Timely Comics’ barnstorming antihero Namor the Sub-Mariner. The watery latecomer debuted in More Fun Comics #73 (November 1941) beside fellow born survivor Green Arrow. Strictly second-string for most of his career, the Marine marvel nevertheless swam on far beyond many stronger features, rendered with style by Norris, Louis Cazeneuve, John Daly, Charles Paris, and ultimately young Ramona Fradon, who took over drawing in 1954.

The Fifties Superhero Interregnum saw Fradon (countless genre anthology tales, The Brave & The Bold, Metamorpho, Fantastic Four, Super Friends, Plastic Man, Freedom Fighters, Brenda Starr, SpongeBob Comics) assume full art chores, by which time Aquaman was settled like a barnacle in a regular Adventure Comics back-up slot, offering slick, smart and extremely genteel aquatic action. She was to draw every single adventure until 1960, making the feature one of the best looking if only mildly thrilling hero strips of the era.

By then, Aquaman had settled into a nice regular back-up slot in Adventure Comics that Fradon drew without missing a beat until 1961: indelibly stamping the submersible stalwart with her unique blend of charm and sleek competence. Month after month, page by page the hero inexhaustibly solved maritime mysteries, crushed nautical naughtiness, wandered and time-travelled, rescuing fish and people from subsea disaster, solving whatever crimes he came across and generally promoting American paternal niceness.

In 1956, Showcase #4 rekindled the reading public’s imagination and slowly but surely spawned a fresh zest for costumed crimebusters. As well as re-imagining its lost Golden Age stalwarts, National/DC undertook to update and remake its hoary survivors. Records are incomplete, sadly, so we don’t always know who wrote what, but this compilation definitely gathers a wealth of Aquaman strips from Adventure Comics #229-284 (October 1956-May 1961), plus short yarns from Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #12 (October 1959), Action Comics #272 (January 1961), Detective Comics #293-300 (July 1961- February 1962) and World’s Finest Comics #125 (May 1962), plus the longer stories from Showcase #30-33 (January/February to July/August 1961), and at long last those from Aquaman #1-3 (cover-dated January/February -May/June 1962)…

Without preamble we dive right into a quartet of sagas by an author unknown, with Adventure Comics #229 revealing how the Sea King spends time in crime-infested Canadian waters and auditions a number of sea creatures to seeking to be ‘Aquaman’s Undersea Partner’, after which smugglers use a stolen shrinking ray to briefly turn the hero into ‘The Tom Thumb Aquaman’ prior to being his being perplexed and endangered by a computor’s prediction of ‘Three Fates for Aquaman’.

Although a citizen of the world, the Marine Marvel was American by default, decent by choice and patriotic by inclination, always helping law men and peacekeepers. Thus AC #232 (January 1957) wryly describes how the Sea King is asked to boost recruitment by joining a US ship’s crew incognito in ‘Aquaman Joins the Navy!’
Aquaman endured public scorn and mockery after comedy impersonator Wackyman used high tech mecahnical sea creatures to lampoon the hero. However, the reasons for the skits of ‘The Sea Clown’ were far from innocent, after which Jack Miller tapped into UFO fever, revealing how aliens from Pluto demand the Sea King fill ‘The Super-Aquarium’ with his “finny friends” before an unknown writer made him ‘The Show-off of the Sea’, ruining an actor’s TV big break… but for the very best of reasons.

In Adventure #236 Otto Binder detailed a battle against a crooked shipping magnate who unleashed ‘The Iceberg of Doom’ before four more uncredited tales swiftly ensued. Chemical pollution was the reason behind Aquaman’s brutal cruelty in ‘The Secret of the Sea King’, a plot to mine shipping lanes was crushed in ‘The Floating Doom’, and ‘The Voyage of the Good Ship Aquaman’ finds the big hearted hero helping an elderly rescue ship skipper before #240 reveals how he helps a children’s author complete ‘The Alphabet Book of the Sea!’ whilst Miller wrote ‘The Mutiny Against Aquaman’ wherein a crooked lawyer poisons his sea pals to facilitate cheating a young man out of an inheritance…

Editorial wisdom at the time decreed comics were ephemeral throway fodder that not even the readership cared about, so many themes and plots resurfaced over the course of months. In ‘The Amazing Feats of Aqua-Melvin’ another, different clown is tranfused with the hero’s blood and develops similar powers, but not the acumen to realise he’s being conned by crooks, whilst in 243 ‘Aquaman’s Amazing Bets!’ the Sea King teaches a gambler/conman a lesson before Robert Bernstein breaks hearts by unleashing ‘The Copy Cat Creature!’ – a fabulous loving beastie from primeval times that adores Aquaman but is simply too big and boisterous to allowed to live in the modern world

In #245, George Kashdan introduces ‘The Sorceror of the Sea’ who outpowers the watery wonder, just as he’s trying to put modern pirates out of business, before we visit ‘The Town That Went Underwater’ where an apparently obsessed Aquaman is determined to make every inhaitant visit his new underwater theme park. Of course, there is deadly reason behind his antics…

Miller detailed ‘Aquaman’s Super Sea-Squad!’ next as his top-trained fish pals help stave off nuclear disaster and a month later wrote how he became ‘The Traitor of the Seven Seas!’: allowing aliens to abduct his beloved sea creatures, after which Bernstein described how aseries of head blows turn the hero evil and greedy. Luckily, faithful octopus Topo is amatch for the piratical Barnacle Gang exploiting the sea change in ‘Wanted: Aqua-Crook!’

For Adventure Comics #250, Joe Millard & Fradon delivered ‘The Guinea Pig of the Sea’ as the Sea King is abducted by a well-intentioned but obsessive researcher fed up with waiting for a moment in the hero’s hectic schedule to open up, prior to being catapulted into the future to find Earth ‘A World Without Water!’ – and remember at this juncture Aquaman needed water every 60 munutes or he would die…

Millard gave way to Miller for a salty tale of Aquaman’s plight as ‘The Robinson Crusoe of the Sea’ (Adventure Comics #252, September 1958), when a chemical spill renders the Sea King allergic to seawater, offering a charming sequence of crisis management stunts by Topo…

Now an affable, dedicated seagoing nomad with a tendency to find trouble, Aquaman braves ‘The Ocean of 1,000,000 B.C.’ (by Bernstein in AC #253, October 1958) after swimming through a time warp, helping a seashore-dwelling caveman against a marauding dragon before finding his way back to the future, in time to end ‘The Menace of the Electric Man’ – a rare dark drama by Miller involving an escaped convict who gains deadly voltaic powers…

Three from Berstein begin with whimsical fantasy ‘Aquaman’s Double Trouble!’ as too many crises at once lead to sea God Neptune stepping in for the hero whilst in ‘The Ordeal of Aquaman!’ crooks maroon the hero in an “arid desert” only to discover how water aware the hero is, prior to battling a crook surgically altered and modified to become ‘The Imitation Aquaman!’

Miller wrote a brace of action tales beginning with #258’s ‘The Incredible Fish of Doctor Danton!’ as Aquaman and a young scientist battle sea beasts mutated by atomic radiation, before the hero is cast out of his body by a crook and must take psychic residence in a fish before ending up ‘The Octopus Man!’ and regaining his own form…

As the Silver Age took true hold, the Sea King’s initial revamp began in Adventure Comics #260 (May 1959) with Bernstein & Fradon’s ‘How Aquaman Got His Powers!’ with the Sea King interfering in US naval manoeuvres to keep Atlantis safe from discovery and harm. From here on, the hero’s nebulous origin – offspring of a union between a human (American) lighthouse keeper and refugee from the embargoed undersea city – was expanded upon and filled out. Eventually, all the trappings of the modern superhero manifested: themed hideout, steadfast sidekick and even supervillains! Moreover, greater attention was paid to continuity and the concept of one shared universe…

In #261, Bernstein pits the hero against a deranged lion tamer in ‘Aquaman Duels the Animal Master!’, and has him launch ‘The Undersea Hospital!’ for ailing sea creatures a month later, before Miller has the hero bring democracy and fair elections to an island nation in AC #263’s ‘The Great Ocean Election!’ prior to Bernstein taking us to New Venice (a US city with canals not roads) where ‘Aquaman and His Sea-Police!’ teach rude and uncaring malefactors how to use boats properly and not litter their submerged marine metropolis…

For Adventure #265 (October 1959) he & Fradon exposed ‘The Secret of the Super Safe!’ detailing a plan to keep the subsea stalwart in soggy isolation whilst dealing with a counterfeiter and blackmailers, before an early crossover heralded Aquaman’s entrance into the wider DC universe.

DC supported the popular 1950s Adventures of Superman TV show with a number of successful spin-off titles. Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #12 (October 1959) featured ‘The Mermaid of Metropolis’ wherein the plucky “news hen” suffers crippling injuries in a scuba-diving accident. On hand to save her is Aquaman and a surgeon who turns her (without her permission or even knowledge!) into a mermaid so she can live a worthwhile life without legs beneath the waves…

I know, I know: but just accepting the adage “Simpler Times” often helps me at times like this. In all seriousness, this silly story by Bernstein is a key moment in the development of DC’s shared universe continuity. The fact that it’s drawn by Kurt Schaffenberger – one of the most accomplished artists ever to work in American comics – makes it even more adorable, for all its silliness; and you can’t make me change my mind…
As National/DC began cautiously remodelling its superhero survivors, amongst the first to feel the benefits were Green Arrow and the Subsea Sentinel. The program included a new origin and expanded cast for each and here (AC #266, November 1959) Bernstein & Fradon tested the waters as ‘Aquaman Meets Aquagirl!’ This offered more information on fabled modern Atlantis whilst testing the waters (Sorry! Not sorry) for a possible sidekick. Remember, in those days the Sea King spent most of his time explaining things to an octopus…

In Adventure Comics #267 the editors tried a novel experiment. At this time the title starred Superboy plus two back-up features – generally Aquaman and Green Arrow. That issue’s seagoing saga ‘The Manhunt on Land!’ saw villain Shark Norton trade territories with GA’s foe The Wizard. A rare crossover with both parts written by Bernstein; the heroes worked the same case with the Sea King facing Norton under open skies whilst the Emerald Archer pursued his foe beneath the waves in his own exploit. Illustrated by the great Lee Elias, ‘The Underwater Archers!’ was a fitting climax to the test, but sadly the arrow portion of the show didn’t make it into this tome, being apparently six pages too many…

In the next issue’s ‘The Adventures of Aquaboy!’ we saw the early years of the Sea King, and following that, permanent sidekick Aqualad was introduced in #269 (February 1960) as Bernstein & Fradon completed the refit by introducing permanent junior partner ‘The Kid from Atlantis!’: a young, purple-eyed outcast from the forbidden city possessing the same powers as Aquaman but terrified of fish… at least until the Sea King applies a little firm but kindly psychology. By the end of the tale the little guy has happily adapted and would help patrol the endless oceans – and add a child’s awestruck perspective to the mix – for nearly a decade thereafter.

With Bernstein & Fradon firmly in control, in quick succession came birthday surprise ‘The Menace of Aqualad!’ (which premiered the Aqua-Cave), battle against mad scientist Captain Noah who was happy to trigger ‘The Second Deluge!’ in his quest for riches, and first proper supervillain ‘The Human Flying Fish!’: a convict rebuilt by a different mad scientist to be Aquaman’s evil counterpart and superior. After all that the heroes took a breather from evil to swim ‘Around the World in 80 Hours!’ only to face constant peril as all Earth’s seagoing crooks used their planned course as a killing ground…

Miller introduced spoiled rich brat Dale Conroy who spends millions to become the hero’s ‘Aqua-Queen!’ in #274, prior to intriguing mystery ‘The Interplanetary Mission!’ in Adventure Comics #275. This was published mere months after the Justice League of America debuted in The Brave and the Bold #28, wherein aliens ask for Aquaman’s help on a rescue mission in space. They are, in fact, human crooks seeking an irresistible weapon and hoping to dupe the bush league hero: securing Kryptonite by to use against Superman. The Man of Steel did not appear, but nets of shared continuity were being gradually interwoven. Heroes would no longer work in assured solitude…

It was back to business as usual for ‘The Aqua-thief of the Seven Seas!’ as Aquaman must clear his name after being framed for stealing a chest full of diamonds, whilst a topical global sporting event prompts the Sea King to organise ‘The Underwater Olympics’ – even though he has ulterior motives that involve more Kryptonite and secret plans. In #278, poor ‘Aqualad Goes to School!’, before proving he has no real need of education, after which cautionary tale ‘Silly Sailors of the Sea!’ see the seagoing heroes give wayward boat joyriders a lesson in responsibility. All of these light pieces were setting the scene for a really Big Event…

Cover-dated January/February 1961, Showcase #30 saw Jack Miller & Fradon vastly expand upon the origin of Aquaman in full-length epic ‘The Creatures from Atlantis!’ Here extra-dimensional creatures conquer the sunken civilisation and Aquaman and Aqualad infiltrate the forbidden city to save the so-superior beings who had always shunned them. From this point on, fanciful whimsy would be downplayed in favour of character-driven drama.

The epic reimagination is followed by another prototype team-up as seen in Action Comics #272 (January 1961) ‘Superman’s Rival Mental Man!’: a clever criminal-sting yarn by Jerry Siegel, Curt Swan & Stan Kaye, centring around Lois’ unsuspected talents as a comic strip artist and career sidestep. Typically, her success as a cartoon creator somehow causes her invention “Mental Man” to come to life and woo her… or does he?

Back in Adventure Comics #280 ‘The Lost Ocean!’ finds the sea sentinels fighting a giant Jurassic centipede to save their favourite TV show before offering more of the same in Showcase #31 (March/April 1961). Second full-length try-out ‘The Sea Beasts from One Million B.C.’ is a wild romp of fabulous creatures, dotty scientists and evolution rays presaging a new path for the Sea King, as Miller scripted the debut Aquaman yarn for comics veteran Nick Cardy. He would visually make Aquaman his own for the next half-decade.

Adventure Comics #282 then delivered tense thriller ‘One Hour to Doom!’ Inked by Charles Paris, this was Fradon’s last Aqua art job for nearly a year and a half, revealing how the heroes survive being trapped on land and away from life-sustaining water, before Showcase #32 (May/June 1961) offered another spectacular epic as Miller & Cardy pull out all the stops for ‘The Creature King of the Sea!’: an action-packed deadly duel against a monstrous villain with murder in mind.

It segued into ‘The Charge of Aquaman’s Sea Soldiers!’, drawn by Jim Mooney in Adventure #284, with the salty stars and their finny legions battling Professor Snark’s scheme to convert Earth’s ocean to fresh water. With this tale the series upped sticks for a new home, replaced by Tales of the Bizarro World. Aquaman and Aqualad were headed to the hind end of Detective Comics, beginning with #293 (July 1961) where they needed only six pages to solve Miller & Cardy’s mystery of ‘The Sensational Sea Scoops’ uncovered by a reporter tracking a submarine pirates. All this time the artist – who had initially altered his drawing style to mirror Fradon – had been gradually reverting to his natural humanistic mode. By the time of fourth Showcase outing ‘Prisoners of the Aqua-Planet’ (#33), the Sea King was a rugged, burly He-Man, and his world – no matter how fantastic – now had an added edge of realism to it, even in this wild romp as the heroes are pressganged into an interplanetary war and shanghaied to a distant water-world…

Detective #294’s deceptively displayed ‘The Fantastic Fish that Defeated Aquaman’ whilst DC #295 saw our heroes defy ‘The Curse of the Sea Hermit’ (Kashdan script), before a new month exposed ‘The Mystery of Demon Island!’ by Miller and the unflagging Cardy. To accompany his more realistic art, and perhaps in honour of their new home, stories became – briefly – less fantasy oriented. ‘Aqualad, Stand-In for a Star’ – (#297 by Miller & Batman regular Sheldon Moldoff) was a standard hero-in-Hollywood crime caper, before Cardy returned to draw #298’s‘The Secret Sentry of the Sea’ – encompassing security duty at a secret international treaty signing…

The next month saw another milestone. After two decades of continuous adventuring the Sea King finally got a comic book of his own. Aquaman #1 (January/February 1962) was a 25-page fantasy thriller introducing one of the most controversial supporting characters in comics lore. Pixie-like Water-Sprite Quisp was part of a strange trend for cute imps and elves who attached themselves to far too many heroes of the time, but his contributions in ‘The Invasion of the Fire-Trolls’ and succeeding issues were numerous and obviously carefully calculated and considered…

The wanderer’s residency in Detective Comics was coming to an end. In #299 the sea scions taught an old blowhard a lesson in tall-tale telling whilst #300’s relic theft-&-recovery case ‘The Mystery of the Undersea Safari!’ was the last Aqua-caper before he moved again, this time to World’s Finest Comics. However, prior to that, his own second issue appeared. ‘Captain Sykes’ Deadly Missions’ is a lovely-looking thriller with fabulous monsters and a flamboyant pirate blackmailing the Sea King into retrieving deadly mystical artefacts.

The World’s Finest run started with #125’s ‘Aquaman’s Super-Sidekick’ by Miller & Cardy as the junior partner briefly becomes an unstoppable uncontrollable pintsized powerhouse before Aquaman #3 closes this compilation in grand style and full-length thrills as ‘The Aquaman from Atlantis’ offers more exposure for the lost city in a tale of traitors, treasures and time-travelling bandit who accidentally takes Aquaman back to the era of swords, sandals and strange creatures…

The 72 adventures gathered here encompass and embrace a period of renewal, taking Aquaman from peripatetic back-up bit-player to his own comic book and the brink of TV stardom. The stories were intentionally undemanding fare, ranging from simply charming to simply bewildering examples of all-ages action to rank alongside the best the company offered at that time. That’s what made them ideal templates for tales of later TV-spawned iterations like Super Friends, Batman: The Brave and the Bold and especially landmark sixties icon The Superman/Aquaman Hour. Comics writers from those years include the abovementioned Bernstein, Binder, Miller, Millard, Kashdan, as well (possibly) as Bob Haney, Edmund Hamiliton, Jerry Coleman and other DC regulars. However at the start the art was always by Fradon, whose captivatingly clean economical line always made the pictures something special…

DC has a long history of gentle, innocuous yarn-spinning with quality artwork. Fradon’s Aquaman is one of the most neglected runs of such universally-accessible material, and it’s a sheer pleasure to discover just how readable they still are. When the opportunity arises to compare her astounding work to the best of a stellar talent like as Nick Cardy, this book becomes a true fan’s must-have item and even more so when the stories are still suitable for kids of all ages. Even though it’s not complete and not available digitally yet, this is a landmark moment for all lovers of pure cartooning brilliance and all-ages adventure storytelling. Why not treat the entire family to a seaside spectacle of timelessly inviting adventure?
© 1956-1962, 2024 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.