Category: Graphic Novels

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JLA volume 5: Justice for All


By Grant Morrison, Mark Waid, Howard Porter & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-110-6

By the time of the fifth collection featuring the breathtaking adventures of the World’s Greatest Superheroes, a pattern for gargantuan epics and mind-boggling conceptual endeavours had been well established and re-originators Grant Morrison and Howard Porter, whilst patiently laying the complex groundwork for a “Big Finish” saga were increasingly sharing creator credits with the cream of the comics-making premier division.

This book, collecting issues #24-33 of the monthly comic-book, also includes contributions from writers Mark Waid, Mark Millar & Devin Grayson and art by Mark Pajarillo, John Dell, Walden Wong & Marlo Alquiza, but begins with Morrison and Porter (with Dell on inks) in cracking form, introducing a brand-new super-team in ‘Executive Action’ as the American military, in the form of General Wade Eiling, announced its own metahuman unit “The Ultramarine Corps”.

The four-person squad was officially tasked with pre-emptively defending America from paranormal threats, but as the JLA (and long-term DC fans) were aware Eiling had a long history of covert, “black-bag” and just plain illegal operations and remained duly suspicious. When the Corps stole the artificial body of major League foe Shaggy Man everyone concerned knew it was bad news but even they were unprepared for ‘Scorched Earth’ wherein Eiling set his Ultramarines and the beleaguered US army against the heroes.

Meanwhile New God members of the JLA were preparing for the imminent cosmic threat they had enlisted to confront (and which would finally materialise in the next volume) whilst Batman, Huntress and Plastic Man infiltrated the General’s base to discover his real motives…

The spectacular revelatory conclusion came in ‘Our Army At War’ (with art by Pajarillo & Wong) as Eiling’s plans were disclosed and the truth about the Ultramarines was uncovered. The net result was the disillusioned super-soldiers setting up their own operation independent of any national influence and beginning to gather like-minded costumed champions for a First-Strike force. They would soon return…

Time-travelling future-robot Hourman replaced the Martian Manhunter for a while and Mark Millar, Pajarillo, Wong & Marlo Alquiza crafted ‘The Bigger They Come…’ a delightfully retrospective yarn which saw size-changing physicist Ray Palmer return to service as the Atom when power-stealing super-android Amazo was accidentally reactivated.

The main event of this volume is a JLA/JSA team-up ‘Crisis Times Five’ (by Morrison, Porter & Dell). The thunderbolt Genie of Johnny Thunder returned with a new master and reality was grievously assaulted by unnatural disasters and magical monsters. Somehow, Triumph, an old friend and foe of the League, was at the heart of it all but promptly found himself trapped in a true Devil’s Bargain…

In ‘World Turned Upside Down…’ with reason on the run the assembled champions of League and Society battled rampant magical chaos, retrofitting a little more secret history as the assorted sprites, Djinn and pixies of the Silver Age DC Universe were revealed to be something far more sinister, and ‘Worlds Beyond’ saw those Genies reduced to civil war; concluding with ‘Gods & Monsters’ as a vast army of united heroes saved reality in the nick of time and space…

‘Inside Job’ (Waid and Devin Grayson with art by Pajarillo & Wong) is deeply embedded in company continuity, set during the Batman: No Man’s Land publishing event and referencing one of the League’s first cases (for which see JLA: Year One) as genetic supremacists Locus returned to make quake-devastated Gotham City their private Petri-dish and releasing a mutagenic terror-virus that not even the JLA could combat…

The book ends with Waid, Pajarillo & Wong’s ‘Altered Egos’ as Batman led a plainclothes mission to discover who – or what – was masquerading as Bruce Wayne: an unexpectedly violent mission which resulted in the return of the League’s most dangerous opponents…

Although Justice For All is as compelling and engrossing as the preceding four volumes the inevitable slippage into company history and continuity means that some tales here might well confuse or even bewilder newer readers; but for all that the action, wit, imagination and sheer fun of these stories should still provide immense enjoyment for devotees of Costumed Dramas and Fight ‘n’ Tights fiction.- and after all, isn’t that inconvenience exactly what footnotes, search-engines and back-issue comics shops are for?

Compelling, challenging and never afraid of looking back fondly or laughing at itself, the new JLA was an all-out effort to be Thrilling, Smart and Fun. For a brief moment in the team’s long and chequered career these were the “World’s Greatest Superheroes” and increasingly ambitious epics, broken up by short, sharp single-issue sorties reminded everybody of the fact. This is the kind of joyous frolic that nobody should ever outgrow and these are graphic novels to be read and re-read forever…

© 1998, 1999 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Amazing Spider-Man: Crime and Punisher


By Marc Guggenheim, Joe Kelly, Barry Kitson, Chris Bachalo & various (Marvel Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5417-6

Although a little disingenuous and rather disjointed for my tastes Crime and Punisher is a splendid slice of spidery superhero shenanigans that proves the modern Wall-Crawler still has a broad reach and plot-themes to suit many moods and occasions.

First off ignore the term “Crime” as the very best part of this collection (comprising Amazing Spider-Man #474-577, and portions of Spider-Man: Brand New Day -Extra!! #1) is a poignant and moving human interest tale with oldest friend Flash Thompson reaching a huge and shocking turning point in his life after returning from a tour of duty in Iraq.

Written by Marc Guggenheim, illustrated by Barry Kitson & Mark Farmer, this low-key tale of inspiration and ordinary heroism is a genuinely moving tribute to soldiers and one of the best Spidey tales of the last twenty years, but it is light-years away from the dark and frenetic retooling of the strictly B-List villain that follows.

‘Death of a Wise Guy’ by Joe Kelly, Chris Bachalo & Tim Townsend (from Spider-Man: Brand New Day -Extra!! #1) tells the secret history of the screen-gangster obsessed young Mafioso who became the brain-damaged cyborg Hammerhead and how his painful rehabilitation and rebuilding under the aegis of new criminal mastermind Mister Negative elevates a clownish super-thug to the top of the villain heap…

When the Spider-Man continuity was drastically and controversially altered at the end of the “One More Day” publishing event a refreshed, now single-and-never-been-married Peter Parker was parachuted into a new life, so if this is your first Web-spinning yarn in a while or if you’re drawing your cues from the movies be prepared to be a little confused.

Therefore this tale from the follow-up “Brand New Day” event sees Parker, a photographer for independent newspaper Front Line stumbling on Negative and Hammerhead’s scheme to consolidate the street gangs into a vast army of boy-soldiers, in ‘Family Ties’ (Amazing Spider-Man #475-6, with additional inks from Jaime Mendoza & Al Vey), a brooding, brutally epic clash wherein Parker puts his life on the line to save Gangsta kids from the Cyborg’s join-or-die recruitment campaign. Kelly’s signature wild comedy perfectly counterpoints the savage battles and highlights the quantum leap in malice the new Hammerhead is capable of…

The book ends with Punisher reluctantly and spectacularly reuniting with Spider-Man to stop their mutual old foe Moses Magnum, a ruthless arms-merchant who has found a way to weaponise Gamma radiation: giving any buyer a serum that producers berserker incredible Hulks to order…

‘Old Hunting Buddies’ (Amazing Spider-Man #477) parts 1 and 2 are written by Zeb Wells, drawn by Paolo Rivera and coloured by Javier Rodriguez & Dean White, with Kelly Kitson & Farmer’s ‘A Bookie Minute Mystery’ bisecting the saga. This last is a cheery little interlude that touches base with J. Jonah Jameson, recovering from heart-surgery and already making plans for his inevitable return…

Fast-paced, bold and extremely engrossing the quality of the individual tales is undeniable, but like an old time Vaudeville Show there’s a marked lack of cohesion, a start instead of a beginning and a close but no ending. Pretty even if lacking in context, it would be a shame if these stories were missed or passed over, so any Fights ‘n’ Tights fan should really give this book a look if they haven’t already…

© 2008, 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

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Judge Dredd: The Apocalypse War


By John Wagner, Alan Grant, Carlos Ezquerra & various (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-634-7

Britain’s last great comic megastar might be described as a combination of the other two, combining the fantastic science and adventure of Dan Dare with the unrelentingly seditious anarchy and absurdity of Dennis the Menace. He’s also well on the way to becoming the longest-lasting adventure character in our admittedly meagre home-grown comics stable, having been continually published every week since February 1977 when he first appeared in the second issue of science-fiction anthology 2000AD.

However with at least 52 2000AD strips a year, annuals, specials, a newspaper strip (in the Daily Star and later The Metro), the Judge Dredd Megazine, numerous reprinted classic comics collections and even two rather appalling DC Comics spin-off titles, that adds up to a phenomenal amount of material, most of which is still happily in print from Rebellion.

One of the most attractive packages and certainly one of the most compelling is this sharply stylish black and white deluxe hardcover collection featuring one of the greatest storylines in the entire canon.

Judicial Briefing: Dredd and his dystopian ultra-metropolis of Mega-City One were created by a very talented committee including Pat Mills, Kelvin Gosnell, Carlos Ezquerra, Mike McMahon and others but with the major contribution coming from legendary writer John Wagner, who has written the largest portion of the canon under his own and several pseudonymous names.

Joe Dredd is a fanatically dedicated Judge in the super-city, where hundreds of millions of citizens idle away their days in a world where robots are cheaper and more efficient than humans and jobs are both beloved pastimes and treasured commodities. Boredom and madness has reached epidemic proportions and almost everybody is just one askance glance away from mental meltdown. Judges are last-ditch peacekeepers who maintain order at all costs: investigating, taking action and instantly trying all crimes and disturbances to the hard-won equilibrium of the constantly boiling melting pot. Justice is always immediate and final…

They are necessary fascists in a world permanently on the edge of catastrophe, and sadly, what far too many readers never realise is that the strip is a gigantic satirical black comedy leavened with oodles of outrageous, vicarious cathartic action.

Dredd’s world is a polluted and precarious Future Tense with all the key analogues for successful science fiction (as ever a social looking-glass for the times it’s created in) situated and sharply attuned to a Cold War Consumer Civilisation. The planet is divided into political camps with Post-nuclear holocaust America locked in a slow death-struggle with the Sov Judges of the old Eastern Communist blocs: militaristic, oppressive and totalitarian – and that’s by the US Judges’ standards, so just imagine what they’re like…

In 1981 Progs (that’s issue numbers to you) #236-244 featured a nine-part story ‘Block Mania’ which detailed an all-out war between two colossal habitation blocks in Mega-City One. With weekly instalments illustrated by Mike McMahon, Ron Smith, Steve Dillon and Brian Bolland (who also supplied some incredible covers) the all-out confrontation between Enid Blyton and Dan Tanna Blocks rapidly proliferated, engulfing surrounding Hab-units, spreading like a plague – or a chemical weapon.

Against a backdrop of utter berserker carnage Dredd discovers a plot by Sov agents to destabilise Mega-City One…

For once the Judge is too late and as his city burns the Dictatorat of East-Meg One launch a nuclear strike, following up with a ground-forces invasion. The Judges hit back with their own nukes and terrified of global Armageddon Mega-City Two and Texas City declare themselves neutral. Mega-City One will stand or fall alone…

Over forty years after the Battle of Britain ‘The Apocalypse War’ stunned and delighted readers. This epic tale of dogged resistance and bloody pyrrhic victory is a masterpiece of drama and tragedy, with Carlos Ezquerra drawing all 26 weekly chapters (even some covers!), and three decades later it still ranks as one of the greatest Dredd tales ever published.

Spectacular, violent, epic and leading to almost incomprehensible actions from someone most readers still considered a “hero” and “good guy” this is as powerful an anti-war story as Pat Mills and Joe Colquhoun’s Charley’s War and deserves as much acclaim and respect.

This volume collects the entire saga and its prequel Block War into one mesmerising and compelling work of glittering triumph and dark tragedy, and should grace the shelves of every serious fan of the medium – and the message.
® & © 2003 Rebellion. All rights reserved.

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White Rapids


By Pascal Blanchet, translated by Helge Dascher (Drawn & Quarterly)
ISBN: 978-1-897299-24-1

A fascinating moment in recent social history is brought magically to life in this captivating and innovative graphic novel which eschews the traditional iconography and lexicography of sequential narrative, utilising the bold stylisations of art deco design and the gloriously folksy imagery of 1950s Modernism (think the architecture and landscape of the television Poirot and the movie “Metropolis” wedded to the crinkly curlicue characters populating the titles sequences of Bewitched or “Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines”).

The effect is like looking at a period brochure, which tragically underscores the bold and far too typical story of a town which lived and died at the behest of forces beyond the control of the everyday working stiffs who lived there. The design tour de force is the first translated work of Québécoise creator Pascal Blanchet who transformed the history from dry fact into a magnificent torrent of visual music.

In the 1920s Canada’s growing power demands were supplied by private companies and the most efficient generation method was hydroelectric, created by damming the mighty rivers of the country. In 1928 the Shawinigan Water & Power Company decided to build a new dam in a remote northern region of the St. Maurice River at Rapide Blanc, a section where the waters narrowed into the eponymous fast-running white waters of the title.

To operate a power-plant in such an inaccessible – and for nearly half of each year actively hostile – region, a company town would need to be built for workers and their families. For any man to bring his family into such a wilderness it would have to be an impressive and wonderful town indeed…

Blanchet avoids the tempting option of personalising or dramatising the tale, preferring to let mood, impression, atmosphere and style describe the birth, brief life and sad, sudden death of White Rapids (no clues or answers from me – buy the book): a gleaming moment of Enlightened Capitalism actually doing the right and decent thing for the Proletarian Worker.

This is like no other Graphic Novel you’ve ever seen and is stunningly effective for that, rendered in reduced hues of orange, brown and grey, marvellously devoid of the heretofore presumed necessary clichés of narrative convention, avoiding the dynamic seductions of Protagonist/Antagonist and the avid fetishism of Vitruvian representational faces and forms that underpin all comics art no mater how avant-garde.

This is a beautiful work and deserves every award it’s ever won as well as your rapt attention.

© 2006, 2007 Pascal Blanchet. All Rights Reserved.

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Flash: The Wild Wests


By Mark Waid, Daniel Acuña, Freddie Williams II & others (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1828-7, paperback 978-1-84576-873-7

Jay Garrick debuted as the first Scarlet Speedster in Flash Comics #1 (January 1940), created by Gardner Fox and Harry Lampert. “The Fastest Man Alive” wowed avid readers for over a decade before changing tastes benched him in 1951. The concept of speedsters and superheroes in general was revived in 1956 by Julie Schwartz in Showcase #4; police scientist Barry Allen becoming the second hero to run with the concept.

The Silver Age Flash, whose creation ushered in a new and seemingly unstoppable era of costumed crusaders, died heroically during Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985-1986) and was promptly succeeded by his sidekick Kid Flash.

Wally West struggled to fill the boots of his predecessor, both in sheer ability and, more tellingly, in confidence. Feeling a fraud, he nonetheless persevered and eventually overcame, becoming the greatest to own the name. After many amazing adventures he married his beloved Linda Park, but just as happiness seemed certain they both disappeared in the reality-bending chaos of the Infinite Crisis…

After the brief death of Bart Allen (Impulse, the second Kid Flash and momentarily the fourth Scarlet Speedster – for which see Flash – Fastest Man Alive: Lightning in a Bottle and Flash – Fastest Man Alive: Full Throttle Wally and Linda returned in a spectacular blaze of glory for six issues, accompanied by their two children, already young heroes in waiting…

Wally West (via scripter Mark Waid) revealed to the DC Universe that all super-speedsters derived their enhanced velocity from an omni-pervasive energy field which permeated all of creation. This “Speed Force” generally provides the energy and stamina needed for extreme accelerated motion and the dubious faux-physics of that fact permeate this rollicking adventure-romp which originally appeared as Flash volume II, issues #231-237.

The twin cities of Central and Keystone have been without heroes for a year when a pair of youngsters, no more than eight or ten, respond to a inexplicable, devastating ferry crash, rescuing drowning passengers from the river using super-strength and vibrational intangibility. As news-crews swarm the kids a reassuringly familiar crimson-and-gold blur once more appears, whisking them away.

And thus we’re introduced to Wally and Linda West’s unique brood, Jai and Iris: one-year-olds cursed with the rapid-aging that blights the children of speed-force users. No one knows where they’ve been and in that timer Linda has blossomed into a scientific wizard: the world’s leading authority on super-speed medicine. As the new parents readjust to life on Earth a race of aquatic aliens launch a wave of “revenge-attacks” on the twin cities, implying the lineage of Flashes was ultimately responsible for their deadly actions.

The recent whereabouts of the Wests becomes crucial to unravelling the motives for the invaders’ murderous rampage (a mystery originally and gradually resolved in short, light-hearted strips by Waid, co-writer John Rogers and artist Doug Braithwaite in the back of each issue, but which are here gathered into one large tale ‘The Fast Life’, preceding the last chapter), and although Wally easily slips back into the role of hero, he feels himself falling far short in new his position of father and provider.

Still, if he can’t stop the water-marauders all his worries will be irrelevant…

The first two chapters are illustrated by the marvellous Daniel Acuña, with Freddie Williams II completing the guest-star stuffed, all-action epic whilst the concluding tale ‘Superman’s Cape’ (written by Keith Champagne and illustrated by Koi Turnbull & Art Thibert) ends the book on a delightfully agreeable high note, combining drama and comedy into a magical tale about learning the heroic ropes.

Fast, furious and sensationally fun this is a magical jaunt for fans of the third Scarlet Speedster, balancing romance and pathos with mind-bending Big-Science, gentle comedy and the mandatory high-speed thrills. My only quibble is that the Wests were casually sidelined to make room for the regrettably inevitable return of Barry Allen.

Still I can’t be the only one asking “Where’s Wally?” so hopefully there’s more to come from the fastest Family Alive…

© 2007, 2008 DC Comics. All rights reserved.

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Walt Disney’s Donald Duck Adventures: Voodoo Hoodoo


By Carl Barks (Gladstone Comic Album #16)

ISBN: 0-944599-15-X

Carl Barks was the greatest armchair (and drawing board) adventurer of his generation. A dedicated and voracious researcher who loved exploration and thrived on local colour and detail in his work, he seamlessly blended history, geography and the natural world into his rollicking rip-roaring light-thrillers. All Barks’ spectacular yarns were screened through a mesmerising lens of wonder and excitement and executed with riotous bursts of outrageous comedy that appealed to fun-starved fans of all ages. They still do.

From the 1940’s to the1960s Barks worked in seclusion, concocting a timeless treasure trove of golden myths and fables (ostensibly) for kids; forging a cohesive Duck Universe stuffed with memorable and highly bankable characters such as Uncle Scrooge McDuck, Gladstone Gander, the Beagle Boys, Gyro Gearloose, and Magica De Spell to augment the stable of cartoon actors from the Disney Studio, but his most exciting work always involved the rowdy, know-it-all nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie and their irascible, excitable, indomitable “unca” Donald Duck.

The boys’ assigned roles were as sensible, precocious and just-a-little-bit snotty counterfoils to their guardian whose intemperate nature caused him to act like an overgrown brat most of the time, but they often fell prey to a perpetual and natural temptation to raise a ruckus as well: clearly something in the genes…

West Coast publishing giant Dell/Gold Key held the license to produce comic-books based on Disney properties from the 1940s, generating a vast treasure-trove of graphic wonderment before grinding to a close in the early 1980s. Fan-based publishers Gladstone began re-releasing Barks material and a selection of other Disney comics classics at the end of the decade and this album is one of the best.

Whilst producing all that landmark material Barks considered himself just a working guy, drawing eye-catching covers, illustrating other people’s scripts to order yet still setting the bar for his compatriots with utterly perfect tales that added to the burgeoning canon of Donald Duck and other Disney properties. His output was incredible in terms of quantity and especially in its unfailingly high quality.

Printed in the large European oversized format (278mm x 223mm) this chilling departure into the realms of the unknown reprints one of his eeriest masterpieces with the lead tale from Dell Four Color Comics #238 (August 1949) and sees the author once more accessing darker themes via the sinister delights of horror movies – albeit seductively tempered with Barks’ winningly absurd humour (for more of the same see also Donald Duck Adventures: Ancient Persia).

Duckburg is all in a tizzy when a hulking undead brute begins loitering around town. Eventually Bombie the Zombie delivers a poisoned devil-doll to Donald which apparently makes him start to shrink. Zombies aren’t particularly smart and he/it had been trying for years to deliver the potent vengeance of his witch-doctor master Foola Zoola to the duck that swindled him … and unfortunately Donald looks a lot like Scrooge McDuck did seventy years ago!

Not believing in curses Uncle Scrooge is less than sympathetic but after experiencing the pester-power of Donald and the nephews he grudgingly funds an expedition to Africa to set things right. And only then do their troubles really begin…

Wacky and deeply satirical this tale was the subject of some controversy after it was first published, with Barks’ evolving drawing style skirting jarringly close to some pretty prejudicial and unwholesome racial stereotypes of the time, and considering the target audience it is a pretty scary story in a lot of places, but as ever, the wildly over-the-top madcap humour keeps everything addictively comforting and compelling.

Filling out this volume is another spooky fantasy fable starring Donald and the boys with a far more prominent role for their Bajillionaire relative as the entire family check out his latest acquisition. Scrooge has bought a castle in Scotland because a legendary treasure is hidden within it, but ‘McMerganser Macabre’ (from Donald Duck #26 November 1952) proves the old adage “buyer beware” as the old pile also seems to have an extremely agitated ghost as an unwelcome squatter…

However even when running for their lives and dodging certain death Huey, Dewey and Louie are pretty sure all is not as it seems…

Breathtaking and supremely hilarious this is a sheer graphic treat for fans of comics in their purest and most enticing form and still readily available from a number of online retailers, but even if you can’t find this specific volume most of Barks’ work is readily accessible through a number of publications and outlets.

As everything he’s ever done is well worth reading, no matter what your age or temperament, you’ve nothing to lose and all to gain by tracking down Barks’ captivating creations; so please do do – or experience the repercussions of the Voodoo Hoodoo…
© 1989, 1949 The Walt Disney Company. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman & Batman: Generations – An Imaginary Tale


By John Byrne, coloured by Trish Mulvihill (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-605-7

Working on the biggest guns in any company’s publishing stable is like being King Canute. You get the major gig, make your irrevocable, industry-shaking refit of said star-vehicle and then as time passes, watch it get inevitably changed or as with DC in current times changed back to suit the restless drive of the fickle fans.

After Crisis on Infinite Earths the myriad alternate Earths that had housed different eras of DC heroes as well as providing handy accommodation for the company’s acquisitions such as Fawcett’s Marvel Family and retinue or the Charlton Action Heroes line had been amalgamated into one bulky, homogenous whole, and the company took the opportunity to retrofit their major stars into the bargain.

Batman got darker, Wonder Woman was culturally re-cast and Superman had all the charming Mort Weisinger/Murray Boltinoff/Julie Schwartz additions and contributions to the original Siegel & Shuster paraphernalia jettisoned by revamp architect John Byrne. Out went the friendship with the Caped Crusader, the entire career as Superboy and all the tenuous, wondrous baggage of fifty spectacular years.

And then he decided to bring it all back…

In the four-issue Prestige format miniseries Superman & Batman: Generations, An Imaginary Tale published under DC’s non-continuity “Elseworlds” imprint in1999, Byrne posited a world where the Man of Steel and the Caped Crusader began just as they had in the dog-days of the 1930s, and by sampling all the eradicated material prior to Crisis, explored how the pair would have fared had they aged like us relatively real people.

Written with obvious affection and referencing the magnificent alternate-continuity flights of fancy dubbed “Imaginary Stories”, but with a more mature modern sensibility the saga progressed in decade-wide jumps that followed the family and friends of the World’s Finest Heroes in an epic struggle spanning the years 1939 to 1999, with a punchy postscript set in 2919 but revealing a secret origin in 1929.

Beginning with ‘The Vigilantes’ where two new mystery-men, Superman and Batman first meet to defeat the mad scientist Ultra-Humanite at the New York Word’s Fair, jumping to ‘Family Matters’ in 1949 where the Joker and Luthor kidnap Clark Kent’s wife Lois, the ‘Strange Days’ of 1959 where aging Dark Knight and Metropolis Marvel battle Bat-Mite, Mr. Mxyzptlk and a host of weird aliens and monsters whilst their children prepare to succeed them or tragically fall the turning point comes with the ‘Changing Times’ of 1969.

Now elder statesmen of the heroic community Batman and Superman watch their children deal with such complex issues as corrupt US President Nixon, the Vietnam War and massive social unrest, only to lose one of their own to the ageless madness of the Joker.

‘Twilight of the Gods’ in 1979 introduced the eco-despot Ra’s Al Ghul to the saga as triumph and tragedy continued to dog the heroes’ descendents and one of their oldest foes struck his most telling blow, whilst ‘Crime and Punishment’ a decade later found the revenge-crazed Superman a disgraced and hunted felon for taking the law into his own hands, with the epic proper ending in 1999 with ‘Beginnings and Endings’ as the fragmented survivors of the twin heroic dynasties reunited after years at odds.

The epilogue ‘1929’, using the magic of comic-books leapt into the 30th century to reveal the actual first meeting of Superman and Batman, a rather saccharine conclusion that was clearly meant to presage the inescapable sequel…

Complex and professional yet somehow inadequate and unfulfilling, the time-girdling circularity and touchy-feely happy-ending is strongly reminiscent of Robert Heinlein’s later Lazarus Long novels (but lacking the satirical bite), as Byrne focused far too hard on adding everything Silver-Aged-and-the-Kitchen-Sink to the mix, but for all that this is still a hugely readable piece of sweetened fluff, beautifully engaging and thoroughly engrossing, and might well act as a gateway tale for new readers and young fans to try the older material for themselves.

Great but not the greatest, Generations is a book every Fights ‘n’ Tights fan should try, but be warned it’s out of print and going for a vast range of prices from online and high-street retailers…

© 1985 DC Comics.  All Rights Reserved.

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The Terrible Axe-Man of New Orleans


By Rick Geary (NBM/Comics Lit)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-581-8

Master cartoon criminologist Rick Geary is back with another compelling escapade from his current series of graphic novel true-murder mystery reconstructions, combining a superlative talent for laconic prose, incisive observation and detailed pictorial extrapolation with his formidable fascination for the darker aspects of human history.

Geary’s forensic eye scours the last hundred years or so for his Treasury of XXth Century Murder series, and here scores a palpable if rather unpalatable hit with a relatively unknown (certainly to me) serial killer saga that would make an incredible film – if only the fiend had ever been caught!

In 1918 with the Great War moving into the inevitable End-game the iconic and legend-laden city of New Orleans endured a campaign of terror that lasted well over a year with far reaching repercussion felt clear across the United States.

As explained in the captivating capsule history that opens this lovely black and white hardcover thriller, New Orleans was founded by the French in 1717, lost to the Spanish in 1763, taken by Napoleon in 1802 and sold to the Americans a year later, making it one of the oldest and certainly the most eclectic, eccentric, artistic and elegant city in the USA.

By 1918 it was a huge, sprawling and vital hub of trade and commerce, peopled by a vast melting pot of immigrant populations. On the night of May 23rd an Italian couple who ran a grocery store were hacked to death by an intruder who broke into their home and attacked them with their own household axe. Over the next year and half a phantom killer would, under the horrifying glare of public scrutiny, kill six people, maim and mutilate another half dozen and hold the city virtual hostage with insane proclamations and demands. He – if it was indeed, a man – was often seen but never apprehended.

Geary is as meticulous and logical as ever, forensically dissecting the various attacks, examining the similarities and more importantly, the differences whilst dutifully pursing the key figures to their unlikely ends.

All the victims were grocers of Italian origin (leading to a supposed Mafia connection) except for the ones who were not, which possibly refuted the theory but equally suggested opportunistic copy-cat killers. A number of personal grievances among the victims led to many false arrests and even convictions, and the killer or killers left many survivors who all agreed on a general description but all subsequently identified different suspects. There’s even a broader than usual hint of supernatural overtones.

Occurring at the very birth of the Jazz Age this utterly compelling tale is jam-packed with intriguing snatches of historical minutiae, plus beautifully rendered maps and plans which bring the varied locations to moody life: yet another Geary production tailor-made for a Cluedo special edition!

The author  presents the facts and theories with chilling graphic precision, captivating clarity and devastating dry wit, and this enigma is every bit as compelling as his other homicidal forays: a perfect example of how graphic narrative can be so much more than simple fantasy entertainment. This merrily morbid series of murder masterpieces should be mandatory reading for all comic fans, mystery addicts and crime collectors.

© 2010 Rick Geary. All Rights Reserved.

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Boneyard volume 7


By Richard Moore (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-583-2

Michael Paris shares his life with a hot vampire chick, a werewolf, an over-sexed fish-woman, assorted demons and monsters. But somehow, these are the good guys and they are often beset by truly wicked monsters with properly evil intentions. For example, there’s the US government, or the creature that keeps beheading counsellors at the kid’s summer camp across the way, or what about that creepy Pumpkin head guy who magics you unconscious then desecrates your dreams?

The peculiar sub-genre of horror/comedy was in safe hands with Richard Moore, whose light, deft touch combines traditional cartooning with spot-on slapstick, surreal humour, and a touch of contemporary cynicism. He can also imbue his abhuman cast with stunning humanity when necessary. So it’s a huge pity that, for the moment at least, the delightfully outrageous cast of Boneyard are going on indefinite hiatus.

Young Paris – don’t call him Michael, he hates it – after years of crappy living and poor fortune finally had a lucky break. Not only did he inherit property from his reclusive grandfather, but the residents of picturesque little hamlet Raven Hollow were desperate to buy it from him, sight unseen. When he took possession he found once more that if anything looks too good to be true There’s generally a sound reason for it.

The property was a cemetery named The Boneyard and not everything within its walls was content to stay dead. Firstly there’s Abby, a beautiful, lovely, pretty and so very capable vampire chick, as well as a sex-starved, foul-mouthed skeleton, a demon with delusions of grandeur, a werewolf who thinks he’s a James Dean, a witch, a hulking Frankensteinian monster and even smart-ass talking gargoyles over the gate. Most worrying of all: There’s even the voluptuous, married amphibian who adds worlds of meaning to the phrase “man-eater.”

The place is a refuge for the restless dead and every sort of Halloween horror, but somehow they all seem more human and friendly than the off-kilter townsfolk and the succession of unpleasant characters, supernatural and otherwise, determined to close down the corpse-filled playground.

Overcoming all odds – including the devil himself – and surviving the cosmic embarrassment of ruining the formal ball of the supreme Over-God of the universe

Paris and Abby are seconds away from taking their painfully coy and cautious relationship to another level – maybe even “the next one” – when the imaginary playmate from his lonely childhood appears.

It appears that not only is Lita real, real cute and a princess of Faerie, but since her dad has ordered her to wed the evil Dark Prince of the Unseelie Court, she wants sanctuary and to marry the one being that really loved her.

Of course Paris was only eight then…

When the Faerie warriors turn up thing get rather nasty and Paris and Lita are captured and imprisoned in the Elvin Kingdoms, and Abby and her Boneyard helpmates have to rescue him – Lita too, if he asks nicely – but first they’re going to need a few allies of their own…

This seventh and momentarily final volume reprints the final issues of the independent comic book in stunning black and white as this charming, sly and irresistibly addictive series comes to a natural pause (one day to return in all its warm-hearted, comedy-of-terrors glory: I wish, I hope, I pray…) but until then Boneyard remains a must-have for Horrorists, Humorists and especially Romantics with an open mind.

One the best humour series to come out of the States since Charles Addams first started reporting from that spooky old house in the 1940s, this touching and wickedly funny epic should grace every fan’s bookshelf.

© 2010 Richard Moore. All Rights Reserved.

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Judge Dredd Featuring Judge Death


By John Wagner & Brian Bolland (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-386-5

Britain’s last great comic icon could be described as a combination of the other two, combining the futuristic milieu and thrills of Dan Dare with the terrifying anarchy and irreverent absurdity of Dennis the Menace. He’s also well on the way to becoming the longest-lasting adventure character in our admittedly meagre comics stable, having been continually published every week since February 1977 when he first appeared in the second issue of science-fiction anthology 2000AD.

However with at least 52 2000AD strips a year, annuals, specials, a newspaper strip (in the Daily Star and later The Metro), the Judge Dredd Megazine, numerous reprinted classic comics collections and even two rather appalling DC Comics spin-off titles, that adds up to a phenomenal amount of material, most of which is still happily in print.

One of the nicest looking packages and certainly one of the most inviting for new readers is this sharply stylish black and white deluxe hardcover collection featuring some of the formative work of superstar artist Brian Bolland.

Bolland by his own admission was an uneconomically slow artist and much of his Dredd work appeared as weekly portions of large epics with other artists handling other episodes, but all the cases collected here are self-contained or short continued sagas, resulting in a wicked compendium of his best, funniest and most striking material all in one magnificent volume.

FYI: Dredd and his dystopian ultra-metropolis of Mega-City One were created by a committee including Pat Mills, Kelvin Gosnell, Carlos Ezquerra, Mike McMahon and others but with the major contribution coming from legendary writer John Wagner, who has written the largest portion of the canon under his own and several pseudonymous names.

Joe Dredd is a fanatically dedicated Judge in the super-city, where hundreds of millions of citizens idle away their days in a world where robots are cheaper and more efficient than humans and jobs are both beloved pastime and treasured commodity. Boredom has reached epidemic proportions and almost everybody is just one askance glance away mental meltdown. Judges are peacekeepers who maintain order at all costs: investigating, taking action and trying all crimes and disturbances to the hard-won equilibrium of the constantly boiling melting pot. Justice is always immediate…

They are necessary fascists in a world permanently on the edge of catastrophe, and sadly, what far too many readers never realise is that the strip is a gigantic satirical black comedy with oodles of outrageous, vicarious cathartic action.

In Prog (that’s issue number to you) 149-151 (January 26th – February 9th 1980), with the continuity firmly established Wagner, writing as John Howard, introduced ‘Judge Death’, undead lawman from an alternate Earth, where the Judges, when faced with the same problems as our world took their creed to its only logical conclusion: If all crime is perpetrated by the living then to eradicate crime…

With all life ended in his own dimension the ghostly ghoul extended his mission to ours, wiping out criminals and law-abiding citizens alike, with the Judges – even Dredd – unable to stop him until the flamboyant and unconventional psychic hottie Judge Anderson of PSI Division sacrificed herself to trap the evil spirit forever…

As if…

With Wagner clearly on a creative roll the fans spoke long and loud and thus both the Zombie Peacemaker and Anderson were returned within a year in the manic mayhem of ‘Judge Death Lives’ (credited to T.B. Grover but still Wagner really; Progs 224-228, August 8th – September 5th 1981), as a desperate citizen released the horror from his eternal tomb at the behest of three more expired Judges: Mortis, Fire and Fear.

Reunited with their leader the Dark Judges went about their duty executing all of Mega-City One and it took a trip to their home “Deadworld” before Dredd and Anderson could stop the slayers – albeit temporarily. Both Anderson and Death went on to win their own series…

For a while early on in his career, Dredd was seconded to the Moon to oversee the colony there – which was as bonkers as Mega-City One – in conjunction with Cold War enemies the Sov Judges.

From that period came ‘The First Lunar Olympics’ and ‘War Games’ (Progs 50-51, February 5th and 11th 1978) a vicious swipe at contemporary sport’s politicisation which was and still is bloody, brutal and bitingly funny, whilst ‘The Oxygen Board’ and ‘The Face-Change Crimes’ (Progs 57 & 52, March 25th and  February 18th 1978 respectively) are hilariously inventive bank-raid capers with the kind of mordant twists which elevated Dredd so far beyond all other cop and sci-fi strips.

Once rotated back Earthside it was business as unusual in ‘The Fog’ (Prog 127, August 25th 1979) a chillingly atmospheric pastiche of horror film classic House of Wax, whilst in ‘The Forever Crimes’ (Prog 120, July 7th 1979) Dredd showed that being dead was no valid reason for a perp to avoid his sentence and this spectacular chronicle ends with the glorious insane ‘Punks Rule!’ (Prog 110 April 28th 1979), an epilogue to the epic Judge Caligula story-arc, with the Judges slowly resuming control of Mega-City One after a civil war and revolution, with Dredd personally stamping out street gangs that had carved out their own little empires in the aftermath.

Beautifully drawn these are perfect short stories starring modern Britain’s most successful and iconic comic character: timeless classics that no real comic fan can ignore – and just for a change something that you can easily get your hungry hands on…
® & © 2001 Rebellion. All rights reserved.