Category: Graphic Novels

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Thunder Agents Archives volume 1


By Wally Wood & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-56389-903-5

The history of Wally Wood’s immortal comics masterpiece is convoluted, and once the mayfly-like lifetime of the Tower Comics line ended, not especially pretty: wrapped up in legal wrangling and not a little petty back-biting, but that doesn’t diminish the fact that the far-too brief careers of The Higher United Nations Defense Enforcement Reserves was a benchmark of quality and sheer bravura fun for fans of both the still-reawakening superhero genre and the popular media’s spy-chic obsession.

In the early 1960s the Bond movie franchise was going from strength to strength, with action and glamour utterly transforming the formerly understated espionage vehicle. The buzz was infectious: soon Men like Flint and Matt Helm were carving out their own piece of the action as television shanghaied the entire bandwagon with the irresistible Man From U.N.C.L.E. (premiering in September 1964), bringing the whole genre inescapably into living rooms across the world.

Wildly creative maverick Wally Wood was approached by veteran MLJ/Archie Comics editor Harry Shorten to create a line of characters for a new distribution-chain funded publishing outfit – Tower Comics. Woody called on some of the biggest names in the industry to produce material in the broad range of genres the company wanted (as well as T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and its spin-offs Undersea Agent, Dynamo and NoMan there was the magnificent war-comic Fight the Enemy and the youth-comedy Tippy Teen).

Samm Schwartz and Dan DeCarlo handled the funny book – which outlasted all the others – whilst Wood, Larry Ivie, Len Brown, Bill Pearson, Steve Skeates, Dan Adkins, Russ Jones Gil Kane and Ralph Reese all contributed scripts for themselves and the industry’s  top talents to illustrate on the adventure series.

With such a ravenous public appetite for super-spies and costumed heroes steadily rising in comic-book popularity the idea of blending the two concepts seems a no-brainer now, but those were far more conservative times, so when T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1 appeared with no fanfare or pre-publicity on newsstands in August 1965 (with a cover off-sale date of November) thrill-hungry readers like little me were blown away. It didn’t hurt either that all Tower titles were in the beloved-but-rarely-seen 80 Page Giant format: there was a huge amount to read in every issue!

All that being said the tales would not be so beloved of we baby-boomer fans if they hadn’t been so superbly crafted. As well as Wood, the art accompanying the compelling, far more mature stories was by some of the greatest talents in comics: Reed Crandall, Gil Kane, George Tuska, Mike Sekowsky, Dick Ayers, Joe Orlando, Frank Giacoia, John Giunta, Steve Ditko and others.

This initial lush and lustrous compilation collects issues #1-4 and covers the first golden year of the series. It all starts with a simple four page tale ‘First Encounter’ by Ivie & Wood, wherein UN commandos failed to save brilliant scientist Professor Emil Jennings from the attack of the mysterious Warlord, but at least rescued some of his greatest inventions, including a belt that can increase the density of the wearer’s body until it becomes as hard as steel, a cloak of invisibility and an enigmatic brain-amplifier helmet.

These prototypes were to be divided between several agents to create a unit of superior fighting men and counter the increasingly bold attacks of many global terror threats such as the aforementioned Warlord.

First chosen was affable file clerk Len Brown who was, to everyone’s surprise, assigned the belt and the codename Dynamo in a delightfully light-hearted adventure ‘Menace of the Iron Fog’ (written by Len Brown, who had no idea illustrator/editor Wood had prankishly changed the hero’s civilian name as a last-minute gag) which gloriously pandered to every kid’s dream as the nice guy got the power to smash stuff. This cathartic fun-fest also introduced the Iron Maiden, a sultry villainess clad in figure-hugging steel who was the probable puberty trigger for an entire generation of boys…

‘T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agent NoMan’ came next, the eerie saga of aged Dr. Anthony Dunn who chose to have his mind transferred into a specialised android body, then equipped with the invisibility cape. The author’s name is unknown but the incredible Reed Crandall (with supplemental Wood inks) drew the first episode which also found time and space to include a captivating clash with sinister mastermind Demo and his sultry associate Satana who had unleashed a wave of bestial sub-men on a modern metropolis. NoMan had one final advantage: if his artificial body was destroyed his consciousness could transfer to another android body. As long as he had a spare ready, he could never die…

Larry Ivie filled in some useful background on the war against the Warlord in the prose adventure ‘Face to Face’ before the third agent was chosen in ‘The Enemy Within’ (also with no script credit and illustrated by Gil Kane, Mike Esposito and George Tuska). However here is where the creators stepped well outside the comic-book conventions. John Janus was the perfect UN employee: a mental and physical marvel who easily passed all the tests necessary to wear the Jennings helmet. Sadly he was also a deep cover mole for the Warlord, poised to betray T.H.U.N.D.E.R. at the earliest opportunity…

All plans went awry once he donned the helmet and became Menthor. The device awakened the potential of his mind, granting him telepathy, telekinesis and mid-reading powers – and also drove all evil from his mind whilst he wore it. When the warlord attacked with a small army and a giant monster, Menthor was compelled by his own costume to defeat the assault. What a dilemma for a traitor to be in…

‘T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Squad’ by Ivie, Mike Sekowsky & Frank Giacoia, is a rip-roaring yarn featuring an elite team of non-powered specialist operatives – which predated TV’s Mission: Impossible outfit by almost two years – who tackled cases the super-agents were too busy or unsuited for. In this initial outing the Squad rushed to defend their Weapons Development Center from a full paramilitary assault only to discover that it’s a feint and Dynamo had been captured by the Warlord…

The first issue ended with a big old-fashioned team-up as all the forces of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. converged to rescue their prime agent who was ‘At the Mercy of the Iron Maiden’ (by Brown, Wood & Dan Adkins) a spectacular battle blockbuster that still takes the breath away…

Issue #2 led again with their strongman star when ‘Dynamo Battles Dynavac’ (Brown, Wood & Richard Bassford) another colossal combat classic as the hapless hero got a severe kicking from a deadly automaton. Once again a narrative thread stretched through the disparate tales as the hero’s girlfriend and fellow agent Alice was kidnapped…

NoMan was ‘In the Warlord’s Power’ (Bill Pearson, Dick Ayers, Joe Orlando and Wood) when an army of Zombie-men attacked a Missile Base and Menthor again defied his master to defeat a Warlord scheme to destroy T.H.U.N.D.E.R. HQ (again no script credit but amazingly illustrated by Sekowsky & Giacoia) before ‘D-Day for Dynamo’ (with art from Wood, Adkins & Tony Coleman) pitted the assembled heroes, reunited to rescue Alice, against Demo, the Dynavac and the Warlord in an all-out war with atomic consequences.

The series took a fantastic turn as the Warlord was revealed to be an agent of a subterranean race of conquerors, but before that the second issue still held another prose piece, ‘Junior T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents’, whilst the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Squad responded ‘On the Double’ to a South American crisis, involving mutant monsters, Communist insurgents and bloody revolution in a classy thriller illustrated t Sekowsky/Giacoia team.

‘Dynamo Battles the Subterraneans’ drawn by Adkins, Wood & Coleman opened the third issue, as the Warlord’s macabre mole-men masters attacked Washington DC, whilst

‘NoMan Faces the Threat of the Amazing Vibraman’ (Pearson, John Giunta, Wood & Coleman) saw a far more plebian but no less deadly menace ended by the undying agent, before Dynamo almost became a propaganda victim of Communist agitator ‘The Red Dragon’ (Adkins, Wood & Coleman) and the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Squad battled a madman who manufactured his own ‘Invaders from the Deep’ (another uncredited script pictured by Sekowsky & Giacoia) before the main event ‘Dynamo vs. Menthor’ (Wood, Adkins & Coleman) posed a terrifying mystery as a trusted agent almost destroyed the entire organisation. With captivating pin-ups by Wood & Adkins featuring Dynamo, NoMan, the Thunderbelt, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Squad and Menthor the visual excitement in this issue is beyond price.

The Dynamo tale ‘Master of Evolution’ (written by Brown, illustrated by Wood, Adkins & Coleman) opened the fourth issue with a dinosaur bashing extravaganza, whilst the fiendish Mastermind arrayed his own android armies against the Artificial Agent in ‘The Synthetic Stand-Ins’ by Steve Skeates, Sekowsky & Giacoia, and the same art team debuted the latest super-agent in the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Squad saga ‘The Deadly Dust’ wherein a Nazi scientist used his time-retarding dust for evil and the heroes responded with a super-speed suit.  This first case for hyper-fast Lightning was followed by a Dynamo milestone ‘The Return of the Iron Maiden’ (drawn by Crandall, Wood & Adkins) which saw the Armoured Amorata betray her latest employer Dr. Death for the man sent to arrest her.

Finally the mystery of Menthor was partially resolved in the fast-paced thriller ‘The Great Hypno’ (illustrated by Giunta, Wood & Coleman), and of course there were more fantastic art extras in the form of NoMan and The Origin of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. pin-up pages.

These are truly timeless comic tales that improve with every reading, and there’s never been a better time to add these landmark superhero sagas to your collection of favourites.

© 1965 John Carbonaro. All rights reserved. This edition © 2002 DC Comics.

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The Search for Smilin’ Ed!


By Kim Deitch (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-324-8

Kim Deitch has been one of the leading lights of America’s Comix Underground since its earliest days, although as with Harvey Pekar and American Splendor, it is only in recent years that he has won wider acclaim: in his case with 2002’s Boulevard of Broken Dreams. For the past two decades Deitch has been producing occasional short stories about a down-at-heel carnival the shabby, eccentric no-hopers that have populated it through-out the 150 years, the eerie aliens who have preserved its posterity and of course, the immortal Waldo the Cat, star of the graphic novel under review here.

In The Search for Smilin’ Ed! we have a formalised, recognisable Kim Deitch Universe – gloriously captured for your delight and delectation in a fabulous full-colour fold-out bonus feature within this comfortingly eccentric and incredibly accessible chronicle – as the author returns, albeit tangentially, to the outré characters of his fabulous Shadowland collection, expanding his ever-growing cast and still tellingly concerned with an absurdist examination of American popular culture scenarios.

With this surreal historiography of the hunt for a childhood landmark of misspent youth, the author once more shares the intoxicating joys of living in the past and dwelling in shared memories. This reassuringly weighty, mostly black and white tome leads with a terrific potted history and incisive essay, ‘Auguries of Brilliance: The Kim Deitch Universe’ by Comics scholar and educator Bill Kartapoulos, followed by the aforementioned universal crib-sheet fold-out, before the narrative wonderment unfolds in a progression of serialised episodes culled from the hallowed pages of famed alternative comics anthology Zero Zero.

One of Deitch’s most enduring characters is the irascible animated cartoon cat Waldo, who here returns to converse with the author himself as they reminisce, revel and ultimately reveal the hidden history of Smilin’ Ed, a pioneer of children’s television who mysteriously disappeared from public gaze in 1954, and was found dead on his yacht. But was he…?

Deitch’s stories are about stories – and particularly storytellers. As his authorial counterpart and the devilish Waldo converse, a cascade of mysteries are revealed when the monochrome moggy unburdens himself of his role in the vanishment, which in turn leads to a convoluted saga of fame, kidnapped boys, murdered children, fortune, a frog and demons, extraterrestrial cultural anthropologists – or voyeurs (?) – immortal pygmies and a social call to the Drawing Rooms of Hell…

Combining the utterly irresistible power of nostalgia and insatiable curiosity with science-fiction, conspiracy theory, urban history, fact and legend, show-biz razzmatazz, supernatural horror, Film Noir and a highly developed sense of the meta-real, Deitch once more weaves an irresistible spell that charms, thrills and disturbs whilst his meticulous drawing holds the reader in a deceptively fluffy, yet inescapable grip.

This volume further breaks down the thin walls of perceived reality by adding a lithograph ‘Ignacio the Bullfighter’ which was part of the narrative to the extra-textual content and also contains an all-new sequel and 21st century update, ‘Consider the Beaver’, which brings us up to date on the world of Waldo whilst delineating the forced evolution of Mankind’s potential successor. As always fact and fiction are seamlessly blended together until only a hyper-cranked search engine could discern truth from fable…

Follow the saga of the World According to Deitch in this wonderful compendium and you too could join the unfolding cartoon parade of the “Americana Way”. In Fact – or Fiction – you might already be there, but you’ll never know unless you look…

Characters, stories and artwork © 2010 Kim Deitch. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman vs. Brainiac


By various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1940-6

Superman is the comicbook crusader who started the whole genre and in the decades since his debut in 1938 has probably undertaken every kind of adventure imaginable. With this in mind it’s tempting and very rewarding to gather up whole swathes of his inventory and periodically re-present them in specific themed collections, such as this calculated confection of cosmic clashes with alien arch-foe Brainiac, originally a mere marauding alien but continually refitted over the decades until he now stands as the ultimate artificial nemesis, a thing of cogs, clockwork and computer code.

This superb collection represents appearances both landmark and rare from the many brilliant writers and artists who have contributed to the Kryptonian canon over the years and naturally this terrific tome opens with the extremely impressive introduction ‘The Super-Duel in Space’ by Otto Binder and Al Plastino, from Action Comics #242 (July, 1958) wherein an evil alien scientist attempts to add Metropolis to his collection of miniaturised cities in bottles.

As well as a titanic tussle in its own right, this tale completely changed the mythology of the Man of Steel, by introducing Kandor, a city full of Kryptonians who had escaped the planet’s destruction when Brainiac captured them. Although Superman rescued his fellow survivors, the villain escaped to strike again, and it would be years before the hero could restore the Kandorians to their true size.

Next is a lovely and clever yarn from Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane #17 (May 1960), by Jerry Siegel, illustrated by the exceptional fine art team of Curt Swan and George Klein. ‘Lana Lang, Superwoman’ saw the Man of Tomorrow temporarily imbue both Lana and Lois with superpowers to foil a blackmail/murder plot by the viridian villain, whilst the novel-length saga ‘The Team of Luthor and Brainiac’ by Edmund Hamilton, Swan & Klein (from Superman #167, February 1964) not only teamed the hero’s greatest foes in an uneasy alliance but also revealed that the alien antagonist was actually a malevolent mechanism in humanoid form, designed by the computer-tyrants of the planet Colu to infiltrate and destroy organic civilisations and cultures.

There’s a big jump to the end of the 1970s for the next story, an epic three-part clash that first appeared in Action Comics #489-491 (November 1978-January 1979) scripted by the hugely undervalued Cary Bates and illustrated by Swan & Frank Chiaramonte.

‘Krypton Dies Again’ sees Superman once more battling Brainiac when the light from the decades gone explosion of his homeworld finally reaches Earth. The resultant flash supercharges his Kryptonian cells leaving the Man of Steel helpless. ‘No Tomorrow for Superman!’ finds an increasingly berserk hero unable to cope until joined by Hawkman to finally resolve ‘A Matter of Light and Death!’

In Action Comics #544 (June 1983) both Luthor and Brainiac were given radical makeovers to make them more apposite menaces for the World’s Greatest Superhero. Marv Wolfman and Gil Kane amped up the computer conqueror’s threat-level with ‘Rebirth!’ as cosmic forces reshaped the humanoid horror into a mechanistic angel of death.

When DC Comics decided to rationalise and reconstruct their continuity with Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985 they used the event to regenerate their key properties at the same time. The biggest gun they had was Superman and it’s hard to argue that the change was not before time. The new, back-to-basics Man of Steel was a sensation and members of his decades-old rogue’s gallery were suitably retooled to match the new, grittier sensibility.

In this continuity ‘The Amazing Brainiac’ was Vril Dox, a monolithic disembodied intellect from the planet Colu who inhabited and transformed the body of showbiz mentalist Milton Moses Fine, (Adventures of Superman #438, March 1988, written by John Byrne& Jerry Ordway, illustrated by Ordway & John Beatty), until it grew beyond physical limits in ‘Man and Machine’ (Action Comics #649, January 1990, by Roger Stern, George Pérez, Kerry Gammill & Brett Breeding) to eventually become a time-travelling ball of malignant computer code, constructing or co-opting ever-more formidable physical forms in its self-appointed mission to eradicate Superman.

By the time of ‘Sacrifice for Tomorrow’ from Action Comics #763 (March 2000), by Joe Kelly, German Garcia, Kano & Mario Alquiza, the fiend had transformed into its 13th iteration and converted Metropolis into an automated City of the Future. It had also learned how to possess human infants – including Lana Lang’s newborn son and Luthor’s daughter Lena… – a chilling thriller to end on, but only a taste of the monstrous horror Brainiac is capable of.

With a pin-up page of Brainiac 13 by Scott Beatty, Steve Kim & Tommy Yune (from Superman: Metropolis Secret Files #1, March 2000) this comprehensive collection is a compelling introduction and overview of the undying enemy alien and a superb treat for fans of every vintage.

© 1958, 1960, 1964, 1978, 1979, 1983, 1988, 1990, 2000, 2008 DC Comics.  All Rights Reserved.

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Superman: Brainiac


By Geoff Johns, Gary Frank & Jon Sibal (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-230-1

Since his first appearance in Action Comics #242 (July 1958) the alien reaver Brainiac has been a perennial favourite foe of the Man of Steel, and has remained so even through being subsequently “retooled” many times. Brilliant and relentless, the one thing he/it has never been is really scary – until this latest re-imagining from Geoff Johns and Gary Frank.

In modern DC continuity the raider was a computerised intellect from the planet Colu who inhabited and transformed the body of showbiz mentalist Milton Fine, until it grew beyond physical limits to become a time-travelling ball of malignant computer code, constructing or co-opting ever-more formidable physical forms in its self-appointed mission to eradicate Superman.

Now, in this slim but evocative graphic novel, collecting Action Comics #886-870 and Superman: New Krypton Special #1, the truth is finally revealed. Long ago, an alien invader attacked the planet Krypton: merciless robotic berserkers slaughtered hundreds of citizens before physically removing the entire city of Kandor. Decades later one of those robots lands on Earth only to promptly fall before the Man of Tomorrow’s shattering fists.

This ‘First Contact’ leads to a revelatory conversation with Supergirl, a fortunate survivor of the Kandor Incident, in ‘Hide and Seek’. Every Brainiac Superman has ever faced has only been a pale shadow of the true villain: autonomous automatic probes and programming ghosts of a malevolent entity that has stalked the stars for centuries, stealing representative cities before destroying the redundant worlds they once thrived upon. And now the real Brainiac has found Earth…

What nobody realises is that the Cosmic Kidnapper has been searching the universe ever since Krypton died. He actually wants to possess every last son and daughter of that long-dead world…

Superman rockets into space to find the monster, unaware that the marauder is already en route to Earth, and as the Metropolis Marvel confronts his old foe for the very first time in a titanic, horrific clash, ‘Greetings’ sees Supergirl lead the defence of an embattled planet Earth from the monster’s diabolical mechanical marauders.

The war on two fronts continues in ‘Mind Over Matter’, concluding in an overwhelming tale of ‘Triumph and Tragedy’ as Superman defeats Brainiac and frees an entire city of fellow Kryptonians he never knew still existed, only to lose one of the most important people in his life, ending the adventure on an uncharacteristically sombre, low key note in ‘Epilogue’.

Johns is at the forefront of the creative movement to restore much of DC’s Pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths mythology, and by combining a modern sensibility with much of the visual flavour of Ridley Scott’s Alien movies has added a tangible aura of terror to the wide-eyed imagination and wonder of those old and much-loved tales. The visceral, gloriously hyper-realistic art of Gary Franks and John Sibal adds to the unease, and their deft touch with the welcome tension-breaking comedic breaks is a sheer delight.

This is a Superman yarn that anybody can pick up, irrespective of their familiarity – or lack of – with the character: fast, thrilling, spooky and deeply moving, for all that it’s also the introduction to the major story event New Krypton – but that’s a tale and review for another time…

© 2008, 2009 DC Comics.  All Rights Reserved.

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Forever Nuts: Happy Hooligan


By Frederick Burr Opper (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-542-1

Frederick Burr Opper was one of the first giants of comic strips, a hugely imaginative, highly skilled and well-regarded illustrator and political cartoonist who moved into the burgeoning field of newspaper cartooning just as the medium was being born, and his pictorial creations (and even more so his dialogue) have enriched western culture and the English language.

Born in 1857 the son of Austrian immigrants, Opper grew up in Madison, Ohio, and at age 14 joined the Madison Gazette as a printer’s apprentice. Two years later he was in New York. Always drawing, he worked briefly in a store whilst studying at Cooper Union independent school before obtaining a position as student and eventually assistant, to illustration colossus Frank Beard.

Opper sold his first cartoon to Wild Oats in 1876, swiftly following up with further sales to Phunny Phellow, Scribbner’s Monthly, Harper’s Weekly, The Century, St. Nicholas Magazine and Frank Leslie’s Weekly, before joining the prestigious Puck in 1880, drawing everything from spot illustrations, gags, political cartoons and many of the new, full-colour, Chromolithographic covers. He was also a book illustrator of major renown, an incisive humorist, poet and creator of children’s books.

Clearly a forward-looking and perspicacious creator Opper first dipped his toe in the world of newspaper strips with an abortive and short-lived feature in the staid New York Herald in 1897, but after making few inroads he returned to magazine illustration. Undeterred by the failure and after 18 lucrative, influential and solid, steady years, Opper was finally lured away by William Randolph Hearst, joining his growing stable of bold comics pioneers in 1899.

Starting on the New York Journal’s Sunday Color Supplement, he created a wealth of different features beginning with Happy Hooligan which first appeared on 11th March 1900. Although not a regular feature at the start – many cartoon strippers of the fledgling art form were given great leeway to experiment with a variety of ideas in those early days – before too long the feature became simply too popular to miss and Opper settled into a stable tenure that lasted until 1932 when the artist’s failing eyesight led to his retirement and the tramp’s demise. Opper passed away at the end of August 1937.

Opper never used assistants but his imagination and unsurpassed creativity made Hooligan and his other creations household favourites around the world, appealing equally to Presidents and public alike. His next strip Mister Henry Peck (1901) was followed by the highly popular Alphonse and Gaston (1901-1904), Our Antediluvian Ancestors (1903-1904) and the astoundingly madcap Mule strip And Her Name was Maud which began in 1904.  It continued intermittently for decades and on May 23rd 1926, Maud became the regular “topper” to Happy Hooligan, running above the strip until both concluded on October 14th 1932 with the artist’s retirement.

Other strips followed, The Red Rig-a-Jigs (1906), Adolf from Hamburg (1906), King Jake (1907-1908), His Name is Ebenezer/His Name is Smith (1908), Ship Ahoy! (1908), Howsan Lott (1909-1914), Is Boggs Cheerful? He Is! (1908), Scuse Me, Mr. Johnson (1909), The Swift Work of Count DeGink (1916) and The Dubb Family/Down on the Farm (1918-1919, 1921-1923, 1925-1927), but none had the appeal or phenomenal staying power of Happy – or Maud – and had perforce to be abandoned.

Happy Hooligan is an affable, well-meaning but bumbling tramp who wears an old tin-can for a hat. Always ready and eager to assist and wishing nobody ill, this gentle vagrant was usually the inadvertent tool of far more fortunate folk who should know better, or cops a little too fond of the truncheon and nightstick, and generally the harsh, unforgiving cosmos of ill-fortune. It is a strip brimming with invention, pathos, social commentary, delightful wordplay and broad, reckless slapstick. More than one source cites Happy as having a profound influence on Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp in both content and tone…

This classy hardback presents a selection of strips from 1902-1913 in the varying forms of colour (two, three and full colour depending presumably on the budget of the local papers these rare survivors were culled from) compiled and edited by Jeffrey Lindenblatt with a fascinating introduction/biography from Allan Holtz who, with collector Cole Johnson, provided the majority of the strips included here.

The strips themselves range from June 8th 1902 to September 7th 1913 and although by no means complete or comprehensive afford a tantalizing glimpse at this iconic, influential and groundbreaking feature. Many of the reprints come from the highly productive and hilarious “Grand Tour” years of 1904 and 1905, (see also Happy Hooligan 1904-1905)

and follow the simple sad-sack across after many abortive, knockabout attempts, across the sea to England and then on to the unsuspecting continents of Europe and Africa before returning to America in 1906.

With brothers Montmorency and Gloomy Gus, plus a burgeoning family of nephews and hangers-on, this too-slim tome ends with some of the optimistic poltroon’s foredoomed attempts to woo Suzanne, the patient and amazingly egalitarian daughter of the Duke of Cabaret. As always these hysterical, rowdy escapades are often exacerbated by occasional visits from the ultra-polite Alphonse and Gaston, Opper’s legendary French gentlemen of extreme etiquette elitism…

Crossovers were not Opper’s only innovation. Happy Hooligan is considered to be the first American strip to depend on word balloons rather than supplemental text, and the humble, heartwarming hobo was also the first strip character to jump to the Silver Screen in six movie shorts from 1900-1902. He was also probably the first mass-market merchandising comics star…

Sadly Opper and his creations become less well-known with each passing year, but the quality of the work can never fail to amuse and inspire. Hopefully this superb graphic appetiser will lead to further collections, and as this book also contains a healthy selection of Opper’s other works from the early Wild Oats and Puck to the aforementioned Gallic gadabouts and the mulish Maud, perhaps we can also look forward to a compendium of his other seminal sketches and comedy classics…

Published in 2009 by NBM. © not invoked.

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Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam!


By Mike Kunkel, Art Baltazar, Franco, Byron Vaughns, Ken Branch & Stephen DeStefano (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2248-2

After the runaway success of Jeff Smith’s magnificent reinvention of the original Captain Marvel (see Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil) it was simply a matter of time before this latest iteration won its own title in the monthly marketplace. What was a stroke of sheer genius was to place the new Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! under the bright and shiny aegis of the company’s young reader imprint – what used to be the Cartoon Network umbrella.

Here, slightly askew of the mainstream DC Universe, these frantically ebullient and utterly contagious tales of the orphan Batson and his obnoxious, hyperactive little sister, both gifted by an ancient mage with the powers of the gods, can play out in wild and wooly semi-isolation hampered by nothing except the page count…

Billy Batson is a homeless kid with a murky past and a glorious destiny. One night he followed a mysterious figure into an abandoned subway station and met the wizard Shazam, who gave him the ability to turn into an adult superhero called Captain Marvel. Gifted with the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules, the stamina of Atlas, the power of Zeus, the courage of Achilles and the speed of Mercury, the lad was sent into the world to do good, a good if immature boy in a super man’s body.

Accompanied by the talking tiger-spirit Mr. Tawky Tawny, Billy tracked down his missing little sister, but whilst battling evil genius Dr. Sivana (US Attorney General and would-be ruler of the universe) he impetuously caused a ripple in the world’s magical fabric through which monsters and ancient perils occasionally slip through. Now, the reunited orphans are trying to live relatively normal lives, but finding the going a little tough.

Firstly, without adults around, Billy often has to masquerade as his own dad and when he’s not at school he’s the breadwinner, earning a living as a boy-reporter at radio and TV station WHIZ. Moreover little Mary also has access to the Power of Shazam, and she’s a lot smarter than he is in using it… and a real pain in Billy’s neck.

Mike Kunkel, inspired creator of the simply lovely Herobear and the Kid, leads off this collection (gathering the first six issues of the monthly comic-book for readers of all ages) writing and drawing a breakneck, riotous romp that reintroduces the new Marvel Family to any new readers and, by virtue of that pesky rift in the cosmic curtain, recreates the Captain’s greatest foe: Black Adam. This time the evil predecessor of the World’s Mightiest Mortal is a powerless but truly vile brat: a bully who returns to Earth after millennia in limbo ready to cause great mischief – but he can’t remember his magic word…

This hilarious tale has just the right amount of dark underpinning as the atrocious little thug stalks Billy and Mary, trying to wheedle and eventually torture the secret syllables from them, and when inevitably Black Adam regains his mystic might and frees the sinister Seven Deadly Evils of Mankind from their imprisonment on the wizard’s Rock of Eternity the stage is set for a classic confrontation.

Pitched perfectly at the young reader, with equal parts danger, comedy, sibling rivalry and the regular outwitting of adults, this first story screams along with a brilliantly clever feel-good finish…

With issue #5 the writing team of Art Baltazar and Franco (responsible for the incomparably compulsive madness of Tiny Titans) took over, and artists Byron Vaughns and Ken Branch handled the first bombastic tale as convict Doctor Sivana unleashes the destructive giant robot Mr. Atom to cover his escape from prison.

The story-section concludes with another funny and extremely dramatic battle – this time against primordial super-caveman King Kull, who wanted to reconquer the planet he ruled thousands of years ago. Older fans of gentle fantasy will be enthralled and delighted here by the singular art of Stephen DeStefano, who won hearts and minds with his illustration of Bob Rozakis’ seminal series Hero Hotline and ‘Mazing Man (both painfully, criminally overdue for graphic novel collections of their own…)

Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! is an ideal book for getting kids into comics: funny, thrilling, beautifully, stylishly illustrated and perfectly in tune with what young minds want to see. With a gloriously enticing sketches section and a key code for those pages written in the “Monster Society of Evil Code” this is an addictive treat for all readers who can still revel in the power of pure wonderment and still glory in an unbridled capacity for joy.

© 2008, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Essential Spider-Man volume 4


By Stan Lee, John Romita, John Buscema, Jim Mooney and various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1865-7

This fourth exceptionally economical monochrome volume of chronological Spider-Man adventures sees the World’s Most Misunderstood Hero through another rocky period of transformation as the great second era of Amazing Arachnid artists comes to a close. Although the elder John Romita would remain closely connected to the Wall-Crawler’s adventures for some time to come it would be – apart from a brief return after the book had passed its first centenary – his last time as lead illustrator on the series.

Stan Lee’s scripts were completely in tune with the times – as seen by a lot of kid’s parents at least – and the increasing use of pure soap opera plots kept older readers glued to the series even if the bombastic battle sequences didn’t. The Amazing Spider-Man was a comic-book that matured with or perhaps just slightly ahead of its fan-base.

Thematically, there’s still a large percentage of old-fashioned crime and gangsterism and an increasing use of mystery plots. The dependence on costumed super-foes as antagonists was finely balanced with thugs, hoods and mob-bosses, but these were not the individual gangs of the Ditko days. Now Organised Crime and the Mafia analogue The Maggia were the big criminal-cultural touchstone as comics caught up with modern movies and the headlines.

This volume (reprinting Amazing Spider-Man #66-89 and Amazing Spider-Man Annual #5) kicks off with a sinister two-part tale featuring one of Steve Ditko’s most visually arresting villains. ‘The Madness of Mysterio’ and ‘To Squash a Spider’ (issues #66-67, by Lee, Romita, Don Heck, Mike “DeMeo” Esposito, and Jim Mooney) saw the master of FX illusion engineer his most outlandish stunt on our hero, whilst in the background the amnesiac Norman Osborn slowly began to regain his memory.

This plot thread would culminate in the first return of the Green Goblin, but frustratingly, even though there’s plenty of brooding build-up here you won’t find the actual culminating story (which appeared in the abortive magazine venture Spectacular Spider-Man #2) in this volume. Perhaps more interestingly, this yarn introduced Randy Robertson, college student son of the Daily Bugle’s city editor and one of the first young black regular roles in Silver Age comics. Lee was increasingly making a stand on Civil Rights issues at this time of unrest and Marvel would blaze a trail for African American characters in their titles. There would also be a growth of student and college issues during a period when American campuses were coming under intense media scrutiny…

However before that another mystery in the Webspinner’s life was cleared up. Amazing Spider-Man Annual #5 by Lee and his brother Larry Lieber (with inking from Esposito – still in his clandestine “Mickey DeMeo” guise) revealed the secret behind the deaths of ‘The Parents of Peter Parker’, an exotic spy-thriller which took Spider-Man to the Algerian Casbah and a confrontation with the Red Skull. Nit-pickers and continuity-mavens will no doubt be relieved to hear that the villain was in fact the second Soviet master-villain who featured in Captain America revival of 1953-1954, and not the Nazi original that Lee and Co had clearly forgotten was in “suspended animation” throughout that decade when writing this otherwise perfect action romp and heartstring-tugging melodrama…

That annual also provided a nifty Daily Bugle cast pin-up, a speculative sports feature displaying the advantages of Spider powers, a NYC street-map of the various locations where the Spidey saga unfolded and a spoof section displaying how the Wallcrawler would look if published by Disney/Gold Key, DC or Archie Comics, or drawn by Al “Li’l Abner” Capp, Chester “Dick Tracy” Gould and Charles “Peanuts” Schulz. ‘Here We Go A-Plotting!’ a comedic glimpse at work in the Marvel Bullpen, uncredited but unmistakably drawn by the wonderful Marie Severin concludes the joyous Annual extras included here.

Issue #68 (by Lee Romita & Mooney) began a long-running saga featuring the pursuit of an ancient stone tablet by various nefarious forces, beginning with The Kingpin who exploited a ‘Crisis on the Campus!’ to steal the artifact. Meanwhile Peter Parker, already struggling with debt, a perpetually at-Death’s-Door Aunt May, relationship grief with girlfriend Gwen Stacy and no time to study was accused of not being involved enough by his fellow students…

‘Mission: Crush the Kingpin!’ further tightened the screws as the student unrest exploded into violence and the corpulent crime czar framed the hero for the tablet’s theft. Hounded and harried in ‘Spider-Man Wanted!’ he nevertheless managed to defeat the Kingpin only to (briefly) believe himself a killer when he attacked J. Jonah Jameson in a fit of rage causing an apparent heart attack in the obsessive, hero-hating publisher.

At his lowest ebb, and still possessing the tablet, he was attacked by the sometime Avenger Quicksilver in ‘The Speedster and the Spider!’ in issue #71, before John Buscema came aboard as layout-man in ‘Rocked by: the Shocker!’

No sooner did Spider-Man leave the stone tablet with Gwen’s dad – Police Chief Stacy – than the vibrating villain attacked, stealing the petrified artifact and precipitating a frantic underworld Civil War as the Maggia dispatched brutal enforcer Man-Mountain Marko to retrieve it at all costs in ‘The Web Closes!’ (by Lee, Buscema, Romita & Mooney).

Upstart lawyer Caesar Cicero was making his move to depose aged Don of Dons Silvermane, but the ancient boss knew the secret if not the methodology of the tablet and had abducted biologist Curt Connors and his family to reconstruct the formula on the stone and bring him ultimate victory.

Unfortunately nobody but Spider-Man knew that Connors was also the lethal Lizard and that the slightest stress could free the reptilian monster to once more threaten all humanity. ‘If this be Bedlam!’ (illustrated by Romita & Mooney) led directly into ‘Death Without Warning!’ as the unleashed power of the tablet caused a cataclysmic battle that seemingly destroyed one warring faction forever, decimated the mobs, but also freed a far more deadly monster threat…

Amazing Spider-Man #76 saw John Buscema become full penciller because ‘The Lizard Lives!’ and the concluding ‘In the Blaze of Battle!’ found the Webspinner trying to defeat, cure and keep the tragic secret of his friend Connors all whilst preventing the guest-starring Human Torch from destroying the marauding rogue reptile forever, whilst #78’s ‘The Night of the Prowler!’ featured (probably) John Romita Junior’s first ever creator credit for “suggesting” the tragic young black man Hobie Brown, who turned his frustrations and inventive genius to criminal purposes until set straight by Spider-Man in the concluding ‘To Prowl No More!’

With #80 a policy of single-issue adventures was instituted: short snappy thrillers that delivered maximum thrills and instant satisfaction. First off was a return for the Wallcrawler’s first super-foe in ‘On the Trail of the Chameleon!’ followed by the action-packed if somewhat ridiculous ‘The Coming of The Kangaroo!’ (a clear contender for daftest origin of all time) and Romita senior returned as penciller for ‘And Then Came Electro!’

There were big revelations about the Kingpin in the three part saga that featured in issues #83-85 with the introduction of ‘The Schemer’ (Lee, Romita & “DeMeo”), a mysterious outsider determined to destroy and usurp the power of the sumo-like crime-lord. ‘The Kingpin Strikes Back!’ (art by Romita, Buscema & Mooney) and ‘The Secret of the Schemer!’ changed the Marvel Universe radically, not just by disclosing some of the family history of one of the company’s greatest villains, but also by sending Peter Parker’s eternal gadfly Flash Thompson to a dubious fate in Vietnam…

‘Beware… the Black Widow!’ saw Romita and Mooney redesign and relaunch the Soviet super-spy and sometime Avenger in an enjoyable if highly formulaic misunderstanding clash-of-heroes yarn with an ailing Spider-Man never really endangered, whilst the next issue ‘Unmasked at Last!’ found Parker, convinced that his powers were forever gone, expose his secret identity to all the guests at his girlfriend’s party…

Using the kind of logic and subterfuge that only works in comics and sitcoms Parker and Hobie Brown convinced everybody that it was only a flu-induced aberration in time for the fateful return of the Webslinger’s greatest foe in #88 as the Romita & Mooney art team bow out on a high in ‘The Arms of Doctor Octopus!’

The deranged scientist had gained telepathic control of his incredible mechanical tentacles and sent them on a rampage of destruction through New York. Freeing himself from prison the villain then seized a jet full of Chinese dignitaries and demanded a multi-million dollar ransom until once more defeated and apparently destroyed by Spider-Man.

This volume ends in the most annoying manner possible with Amazing Spider-Man #89, a turning point in the series as the undisputed master of super-heroic anatomy Gil Kane assumed the penciling role (inked by Romita) for ‘Doc Ock Lives!’ wherein the villain attacked once more and hurled the overwhelmed hero to his doom… the result of which you’ll need volume 5 to see.

Moreover that selfsame climatic conclusion signalled the tragic demise of a major character and a genuine turning point in the history of the Amazing Arachnid.

Seriously guys: you couldn’t afford 21 more pages to give this book a proper narrative resolution? What kind of editors or publishers do that to valued fans and especially any new readers you might be cultivating?

Despite that major qualification this is still a fantastic book about an increasingly important teen icon and symbol. Spider-Man at this time became a permanent, unmissable part of many youngsters’ lives and did so by living a life as close to theirs as social mores and the Comics Code would allow. Blending cultural authenticity with spectacular art, and making a dramatic virtue of the awkwardness, confusion and sense of powerlessness that most of the readership experienced daily resulted in an irresistibly intoxicating read, delivered in addictive soap-opera instalments, but none of that would be relevant if the stories weren’t so compellingly entertaining. This book is Stan Lee’s Marvel and Spider-Man at their peak.

© 1968, 1969, 1970, 2005 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Batman: The Many Deaths of the Batman


By John Byrne, Jim Aparo & Mike DeCarlo (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-033-8

Batman is in one way the ultimate superhero: he is uniquely adaptable and can fit into practically any type or genre of story – as is clearly evident from the plethora of vintage tales collected in so many captivating volumes over the years.

One less well-mined period (so far at least) is the grim and/or gritty 1980s when the Caped Crusader was partially reinvented in the wake of the inspired and inspirational Crisis on Infinite Earths, becoming a driven but still cool-headed, deeply rational Manhunter, rather the dark, driven paranoid of later days or the costumed boy-scout of the “Camp” crazed Sixties.

This brief but satisfyingly punchy thriller combined the best of all worlds and even pushed the creative envelope with a silent/mime first chapter (no pesky words to read, fans!) as in the wake of the murder of his sidekick Jason Todd (see Batman: A Death in the Family) the traumatised hero is forced to re-examine his own origins during a bloody murder-spree that touches the very essence of what – and who – made him…

Collecting Batman #433-435 (May-July 1989) the mini epic opens in a shocked, rain-soaked Gotham with a ‘Period of Mourning’ as the city reacts to the sight of the Caped Crusader crucified in a dirty alley. His friends and enemies reel in shock, but soon that turns to something else as another Bat corpse is discovered. Meanwhile the real Dark Knight is finishing an international hunt in Paris when the news reaches him…

‘How Many Times Can a Batman Die?’ expands the enigma as the hero returns to Gotham to probe the mystery of six seemingly random dead men murdered in his costume. However they aren’t strangers to Bruce Wayne. Every one of them was a specialist in one particular field, and each had spent time long ago teaching an anonymous young man one of the many skills necessary to become the Batman…

The saga concludes in captivating and rewarding manner as a fair-play mystery is solved in ‘The Last Death of the Batman’, displaying all those composite skills as the Dark Knight shows himself to truly be “The World’s Greatest Detective.”

Short, sweet and simply superb, this is a Batman much missed by many of us, and this tale, like so many others of the period is long overdue for the graphic novel treatment. To the Bat-Files, old chums…
© 1992 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman: A Death in the Family


By Jim Starlin, Jim Aparo & Mike DeCarlo (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-93028-944-7

Despite decades of wanting to be “taken seriously” by the wider world, every so often a comic-book event gets away from editors and publishers and takes on a life of its own. This usually does not end well for our favourite art form, as the way the greater world views the comics microcosm is seldom how we insiders and cognoscenti see it.

One of the most controversial comics tales of the last century saw an intriguing marketing stunt go spectacularly off the rails – for all the wrong reasons – becoming instantly notorious and sadly masking the real merits of the piece.

Robin, the Boy Wonder debuted in Detective Comics #38 (April 1940) created by Bob Kane, Bill Finger and Jerry Robinson: a juvenile circus acrobat whose parents were murdered by a mob boss. The story of how Batman took the orphaned Dick Grayson under his scalloped wing and trained him to fight crime has been told, retold and revised many times over the decades and still undergoes the odd tweaking to this day

The child Grayson fought beside Batman until 1970 when, as a sign of the turbulent times, he flew the nest, becoming a Teen Wonder and college student. His invention as a junior hero for younger readers to identify with had inspired an incomprehensible number of costumed sidekicks and kid crusaders throughout the industry, and Grayson continued in similar vein for the older, more worldly-wise readership of America’s increasingly rebellious youth culture.

Robin even had his own solo series in Star Spangled Comics from 1947 to 1952, a solo spot in the back of Detective Comics from the end of the 1960s wherein he alternated and shared with Batgirl, and a starring feature in the anthology comic Batman Family. During the 1980s the young hero led the New Teen Titans, re-established a turbulent working relationship with Batman and reinvented himself as Nightwing. This of course left the post of Robin open…

After Grayson’s departure Batman worked alone until he caught a streetwise young urchin trying to steel the Batmobile’s tires. Debuting in Batman #357 (March 1983) this lost boy was Jason Todd, and eventually the little thug became the second Boy Wonder (#368, February 1984), with a short but stellar career, marred by his impetuosity and tragic links to one of the Caped Crusader’s most unpredictable foes…

Todd had some serious emotional problems that became increasingly apparent in the issues leading up to ‘A Death in the Family’ as the street kid became more callous and brutal in response to the daily horrors he was being exposed to. When he caused the death of a vicious, abusive drug-dealer with diplomatic immunity (and when is that long-neglected sequence of tales going to be collected, huh?) the boy entered a spiral that culminated in the story-arc collected here, comprising Batman #426-429.

Ever more violent and seemingly incapable of rudimentary caution, Jason Todd is suspended by Batman who thinks the boy has not adjusted to the death of his parents. Meanwhile the Joker is again on the loose. But rather than his usual killing frenzy the Clown Prince is after mere cash, as the financial disaster of “Reaganomics” has depleted his coffers – meaning he can’t afford his outrageous murder gimmicks…

Without purpose, Jason has been wandering the streets where he grew up. When he sees an old friend of his dead mother she reveals s a shocking secret. The woman who raised him was not his birth-mother, and moreover there is a box of personal papers that indicate three women who might be his true mother. Lost and emotionally volatile Jason sets out to track them down…

The potential parents are Lady Shiva, world’s deadliest assassin, Sharmin Rosen, Mossad agent and Dr. Sheila Haywood, a famine relief worker in Ethiopia. As the lad heads for the Middle East and a confrontation with destiny he is unaware that Batman is also in that troubled region, hot on the Joker’s trail as the Maniac of Mirth attempts to sell a stolen nuclear missile to any terrorist who can pay…

The estranged heroes accidentally reunite to foil the plot, and Jason crosses Rosen off his potential mom-list. As Batman offers to help Jason check the remaining candidates the fugitive Joker escapes to Ethiopia. After eliminating Shiva, who has been training terrorists in the deep desert, the heroes finally get to Jason’s true mother Sheila Haywood, unaware that she has been blackmailed into a deadly scam involving stolen relief supplies with the Clown Prince of Crime…

I’m not going to bother with the details of the voting fiasco that plagues all references to this tale: it’s all copiously detailed elsewhere (just Google and see) but suffice to say that to test then-new marketing tools a 1-900 number was established and thanks to an advanced press campaign readers were offered the chance to vote on whether Robin would live or die in the story.

He dies.

The kid had increasingly become a poor fit in the series and this storyline galvanised a new direction with a darker, more driven Batman, beginning almost immediately as the Joker, after killing Jason in a chilling and unforgettably violent manner, became the UN ambassador for Iran (later revised as the fully fictional Qurac – just in case) and at the request of the Ayatollah himself attempted to kill the entire UN General Assembly during his inaugural speech.

With echoes of Frank Miller’s landmark The Dark Knight Returns, Superman then becomes a government watchdog tasked with stopping Batman from breaching diplomatic immunity as the vengeance-hungry Caped Crusader attempts to stop the Joker at any cost, leading to a spectacular yet chillingly inconclusive conclusion with the portents of dark days to come…

And here is the true injustice surrounding this tale: the death of Robin (who didn’t even stay dead) and the voting debacle took away from the real importance of this story – and perhaps deflected some real scrutiny and controversy. Starlin had crafted a clever and bold tale of real world politics and genuine issues which most readers didn’t even notice.

Terrorism Training Camps, Rogue States, African famines, black marketeering, Relief fraud, Economic, Race and Class warfare, Diplomatic skullduggery and nuclear smuggling all featured heavily, as did such notable hot-button topics as Ayatollah Khomeini, Reagan’s Cruise Missile program, the Iran-Contra and Arms for Hostages scandals and the horrors of Ethiopian refugee camps.  Most importantly it signaled a new and fearfully casual approach to violence and death in comics-books.

This is a superbly readable tale, morally challenging and breathtakingly audacious – but it’s controversial in all the wrong places and for all the wrong reasons. But don’t take my word for it: get it and see for yourself.

© 1988 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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100 Bullets: A Foregone Tomorrow


By Brian Azzarello & Eduardo Risso (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-466-0

From being one of the best crime-comics in decades 100 Bullets gradually, cunningly transformed into a startlingly imaginative conspiracy thriller, with this fourth volume (collecting issues #20-30 of the much missed adult comic book) finally seeing a disparate range of previously seen strangers revealed as vital components in a vast and intriguing cast.

The tension begins with ‘The Mimic’, a captivating multi-layered allegorical vignette which features a conversation on a park bench between the mysterious Mr. Shepherd and young Benito Medici disclose some pertinent facts and intriguing conjectures about the enigmatic Agent Graves and his old associates “the Minutemen”, all whilst the life or death drama of a street corner gangsta’s life plays out to a lethal inevitable conclusion around them.

In the two-part ‘Sell Fish & Out to Sea’ “High” Jack Daw, sometime bouncer, doped-out addict and one more lost soul is offered a way to change his life with the now inescapable consequences. When he is handed a gun and those eponymous bullets he revisits all the family and friends he had left; looking for the reason he’d fallen so low. Only when he finally ascertained who was really responsible for his fall did he start using that untraceable weapon and ammunition…

East Coast gaming capitol Atlantic City is the venue for ‘Red Prince Blues’ and sees the return of super-bitch Megan Dietrich (see 100 Bullets: First Shot, Last Call) and ice-cold Benito, both scions of the mysterious Trust, but busily conspiring for their own unscrupulous futures as inveterate gambler Hank tries to win one last pot…

With a dying wife the last thing he needed was to get into a poker game with young Medici, but everything goes into a terminal spin when Graves, Cole Burns and Dizzy Cordova hit town. This three part saga provides more useful clues about the thirteen families that rule America, and when the head of one of those Trust clans dies after a parley with Graves the stakes are raised to a level that no one can afford…

‘Mr. Branch & the Family Tree’ returns us to Paris and Dizzy’s old instructor who unwisely reveals the secret history of The Trust and The Minutemen in a saucily novel manner; a classy yarn that sees guest artists Paul Pope, Joe Jusko, Mark Chiarello, Jim Lee, Lee Bermejo, Dave Gibbons, Tim Bradstreet, Jordi Bernet, Frank Miller and J.G. Jones supplement the always superb Eduardo Risso with a series of narrative pin-ups identifying the major players in this increasingly convoluted, compelling chronicle.

Next comes possibly the best single tale of the entire run as Agent Graves encounters a geriatric baseball star whilst delivering another briefcase. This is no mere fading star however, but a man who once wed the most glamorous movie star of her generation, a tragic woman who had an affair with a President and – apparently – took her own life. The still grieving widower is also someone a younger but just as resolute Graves left a briefcase with in early 1963…

‘Idol Chatter’ is a conspiracy nut’s dream, blending legend, myth and history into a clever, witty and punishingly poignant tale, even though the mordant black humour is never too far away…

This edgy epistle ends with the three part ‘¡Contrabandolero!’ as lowlife El Paso gas-station attendant Wylie Times meets Dizzy and Mr. Shepard before getting sucked into a crazy criminal scam to smuggle contraband from Mexico into the USA. Unfortunately things quickly go south in Juárez when the “exporter” insists that the illicit entrepreneurs also provide an over-sexed, under-age girl with a ride back to the Land of the Free…

Wylie just might be another Minuteman waiting to be reactivated, but you wouldn’t know it from this calamitous comedy of errors and terrors…

Bleak drama gradually gave way to dark gallows humour and the major characters were slowly showing softer sides but this high-octane thriller had lost of its verve with this volume. The unfolding saga remains an astoundingly accessible and readable thriller as the mystery of the Trust is revealed and Agent Graves begins the final stage of a plan decades in the making: 100 Bullets promises that the best is already here, but even better is waiting…

Entertainment starved story fans – grown-up, paid-up, immune to harsh language and unshocked by rude, very violent behaviour – should make their way to their favourite purveyor of fine fiction immediately and get these graphic novels at all costs.

© 2001, 2002 Brian Azzarello, Eduardo Risso and DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.