Category: Graphic Novels

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The Question volume 4: Welcome to Oz


By Dennis O’Neil, Denys Cowan, Rick Magyar & various III (DC Comics)

ISBN: 978-1-84856-328-5

The Question, created by Steve Ditko, was Vic Sage, a driven, obsessed reporter who sought out crime and corruption irrespective of the consequences. This Charlton ‘Action-Hero’ was purchased by DC when Charlton folded in 1983 and was the template for the compulsive Rorschach when Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons first drafted the miniseries that would become the groundbreaking Watchmen.

An ordinary man pushed to the edge by his obsessions, Sage used his fists and a mask that made him look utterly faceless to get answers (and justice) whenever normal journalistic methods failed. After a few minor successes around the DC universe Sage got a job in the town where he grew up.

Hub City (purportedly based on East St Louis) was a hell-hole, the most corrupt and morally bankrupt municipality in America. Mayor Wesley Fermin was a degenerate drunken sot and the real power was insane cleric Reverend Jeremiah Hatch. When Sage started cleaning house as The Question he was “killed”, rescued and resurrected by the inscrutable Shiva – the World’s deadliest assassin.

Crippled, he journeyed into the wilderness to be healed and trained by O’Neil’s other legendary martial arts creation, Richard Dragon.

It’s a new type of hero who returned to Hub City, philosophical rather than angry, but still cursed with a drive to understand how things universally go bad. The city has degenerated even further. Sage’s girlfriend is now Mayor Fermin’s wife, and crime and chaos are everywhere…

This fourth collection (reprinting issues #19-24 of the seminal 1980s series) brings to a head many of the dark plot threads that have been with the series since its inception. With Fermin permanently drunk and oblivious Sage has renewed his affair with Myra, even whilst she is running for her husband’s job.

Closet racist Royal Dinsmore has better ways of winning the race than smearing his opponent, but thanks to an extremely disturbed good citizen those plans are exposed in ‘The Plastic Dilemma’ (illustrated by Denys Cowan & Rick Magyar) and Myra refuses the financial support of a particularly unwholesome millionaire backer, whilst the emotional impact of her affair with Sage is revealed in ‘Send in the Clowns’ (an all-Magyar art job) a brutal tale of freaks, greed and prejudice.

Dick Giordano inks Cowan in ‘Rejects’ as psychopathic Junior Musto, returns (see The Question: Zen and Violence) to take a hospital hostage, demanding a heart transplant for the father who abused and tried to destroy him. That Greek tragedy leads into the main event…

‘Election Day (by Cowan & Malcolm Jones III): The Fix’ begins an agonising comedy of political errors as Dinsmore’s plan to steal the election is thwarted and he resorts to hiring a gang of Bikers to prevent the populace from voting – a t least those who can be bothered to turn out.

All the while Myra is having heartrending second thoughts. She doesn’t want to win but can’t afford to let a monster like Dinsmore gain control of her city. In the background her sot husband lurks; drunk deranged, bitter: clutching a bottle and a gun…

Some disquieting historical facts about Hub City are revealed in ‘Election Day: Welcome to Oz’ as the situation worsens. Open warfare in the streets is compounded by the arrival of a tornado that smashes most of the city to rubble, and the terrible conclusion ‘Election Day: The Dark’ sees Dinsmore defeated by a last-minute Machiavellian masterstroke from Vic Sage.

Mrya becomes the new Mayor of the biggest, most corrupt pile of rubble in America. A shot rings out…

Even ending on such a painful cliffhanger is grudgingly acceptable when the work is of such sterling quality and these eccentric epics are as readable now as they ever were. Complex characters, a very mature depiction of the struggle between Good and Evil using Eastern philosophy and very human prowess to challenge crime, corruption, abuse, neglect and complacency would seem to be a recipe for heady but dull reading yet these stories by one of the American industry’s greatest wordsmiths, and especially the mythic martial arts action delineated by Denys Cowan are gripping beyond belief and constantly challenge any and all preconceptions. So grab this book; absorb, enjoy and then move briskly on to the next volume.

I’m going to…

© 1988, 1989, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Captain Atom: Armageddon


By Will Pfeifer, Giuseppe Camuncoli & Sandra Hope (WildStorm)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1106-6

When DC acquired the right to the 1960s Charlton Comics “Action Heroes” line Captain Atom was the character and concept which had the most radical makeover. No longer a two-fisted, patriotic astronaut survivor of an atomic accident, the new Nathaniel Adam was a discredited and cashiered US soldier in the 1960s, forced to undergo a merge with alien metal by his own superiors, and accidentally catapulted 25 years into the future.

After a brief period as a pawn of the self-same General who caused all his woes, Adam struck out on his own and gradually achieved some measure of credibility in the superhero community, both as a solo act and leader of Justice League Europe and Extreme Justice. Whenever his popularity waned and whatever series he was in was cancelled, he would inevitably reappear as a government pawn/nominal establishment bad-guy working for Uncle Sam.

Gifted with phenomenal quantum-energy powers he was in a class that could hurt Superman, and when Lex Luthor became President of America Atom was ordered to defeat both the Man of Steel and the Dark Knight (see Superman/Batman: Public Enemies). Coming to his moral senses just in time, Captain Atom sacrificed himself to destroy a colossal Kryptonite meteor which would have obliterated the Earth.

Which is right where this slight-but-fun slab of superhero eye-candy picks up…

Neither disintegrated nor time-bumped, Atom reappears in a parallel universe inexplicably sporting a new look. Thinking this is just another one of those things sent to plague costumed crusaders he begins to make himself known to the authorities and that world’s metahumans, but something is not quite right…

The energy of his explosive sacrifice has pushed him beyond the interdimensional barrier known as “The Bleed” into a dark and savage para-reality where superbeings are far from welcome or revered. In fact the human populace lives in dread of its “Post-Human” entities, especially as some like The Authority have often taken over the planet for their own purposes(see The Authority: Revolution books 1 & 2).

After clashes and conferences with alien powerhouse Majestic and the aforementioned Authority, the good Captain realises that his journey has melded him with some alien force in this Wild and Stormy universe, and prevents his leaving it. Moreover, that force is causing him to “melt down”: if he stays he’s going to explode and take all the other universes with him.

Unable to cure or remove Captain Atom, the only sensible option seems to be to kill him – a solution all these bloodthirsty heroes seem more than willing to attempt…

Pure comics fan-fare, this is a fast-paced, witty romp for adult superhero fanatics that won’t make a lot of sense to outsiders but is a tasty treat for anybody who likes their fights ‘n’ tights edgy and post-modern. Devotees will get off on seeing the likes of Grifter, Void, Maul, Zealot and the other WildC.A.T.s going head to head with our golden boy and there’s a definite doom-laden, ticking-clock conundrum to solve for those of us who like a little plot with our ultra-pretty designer violence.

A definite guilty pleasure, stylish, thrilling and inexplicably satisfying.

© 2007 WildStorm Productions. All Rights Reserved.

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Spider-Man: Blue


By Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1071-2

In Spider-Man: Blue Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale set their nostalgia-filled sights on the beginning of Peter Parker’s tragically brief romance with Gwen Stacy, encompassing the transitional period when Steve Ditko’s creepy, plucky outsider grew into the wholesome, straight-shooting, hard-luck hero designed by John Romita Senior.

Reprinting the 6-issue miniseries from 2002, this slight if readable epic reconstitutes pertinent snippets from Amazing Spider-Man # 39-49, plus a smidgeon of #63, as, on a gloomy Valentine’s Day, happily married Peter records a message to a dead once-girlfriend he hasn’t really gotten over. In the form of a reminiscence of those days when he first emerged from his solitary shell, Parker recalls how he found – and lost – a few friends and inadvertently met his future wife Mary Jane, all whilst pursuing a pure, innocent and unlikely love with a seemingly unattainable dream…

Along the way he also fought a formidable array of super-foes, including The Green Goblin, the Rhino, the Lizard, two different Vultures and Kraven the Hunter, uncomfortably re-imagined here as the kind of sinister, brooding mastermind that he simply could not ever have been.

Sadly, there’s no real tension in the saga because even the newest readers already know the inevitable romantic outcomes whilst the attempt to weave a number of isolated super-baddie clashes into a vast master-plan over and above what Lee and Romita envisioned is clumsy and ill-considered. Don’t take my word for it: the original tales are readily available for your perusal and delectation in such sterling volumes as Essential Spider-Man volumes 2 and 3, as well as assorted Marvel Masterworks and collections, should you feel the need to contrast and compare…

Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale have a prodigious track record with simultaneously retrofitting, rationalising and re-examining the pivotal moments of many comic-book icons: especially distilling the key moments of iconic characters and careers into material palatable to modern readers, but here it’s simply a waste of their time. The originals are simply still better than the slow, shallow rehashing here.  This is not one of their better efforts, and often comes perilously close to being simply maudlin far too often for comfort.

Although Sale’s art is always a joy to behold, and Loeb’s gift for dialogue is undiminished Spider-Man: Blue falls short of their best. A solid, casual affair but not a patch on the real thing …

© 2002, 2003, 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Artemis Fowl: the Graphic Novel


By Eoin Colfer & Andrew Donkin, illustrated by Giovanni Rigano, colour by Paolo Lamanna (Puffin Books)
ISBN: 978-0-141-32296-4

I just couldn’t let Puffin Books’ 70th anniversary pass without a congratulatory comment, and this exceedingly entertaining adaptation of one of the best children’s novels (and how I wish that didn’t sound like that makes kids fiction somehow less valid than “grown up” books) of recent years is a perfect way so to do.

Puffin Books began in 1939, the brainchild of Allan Lane who had revolutionised the world four years previously with the launch of Penguin Books, successfully establishing the mass-market paperback. Despite war-time paper shortages Puffin grew from strength to strength, especially when journalist Kaye Webb took over as editor in 1961, introducing a higher rate of illustration to the books, widening the parameters of the kids market by commissioning a huge variety of new authors and in 1967 creating the world’s greatest and best book society – the Puffin Club.

If you grew up in Britain over the last fifty years you have read one of the books she was responsible for. …

Webb passed away in 1996 but her innovative influence still permeates Puffin, as can be seen in the captivating adventures of Artemis Fowl II, criminal mastermind, scion of Ireland’s greatest family of rogues and villains and probably the greatest intellect on the planet. He inherited the family business when his father mysteriously vanished on a caper, a loss from which Artemis’ mother has never recovered.

This Machiavellian anti-hero is a teenager so smart that he has deduced that fairies and mystical creatures actually exist and he spends this first book stealing their secrets to replenish the family’s depleted fortunes and fulfil his greatest heart’s desire…

His greatest ally is Butler, a manically loyal and extremely formidable hereditary retainer who is a master of physical violence. The first of the six novels published thus far is here adapted by the author and Andrew Donkin, and illustrated in a kind of Euro-manga style that won’t suit everybody but which nevertheless perfectly captures the mood and energy of the original. This lavish adventure is also interspersed with comprehensive and clever data-file pages (by Megan Noller Holt) to bring everybody up to full speed on this wild, wild world…

Fowl is utterly brilliant and totally ruthless. Once determining that the mythological realm of pixies, elves, ogres and the like are actually a highly advanced secret race which predated humanity and now dwells deep underground, he “obtains” and translates their Great Book and divines all their secrets of technology and magic.

Fowl has a plan for the greatest score of all time, and knows that he cannot be thwarted, but he not reckoned on the wit, guts and determination of Holly Short, an elf who works for the Lower Elements Police Reconnaissance Force. She is the only female LEPRecon allowed to work on the surface and has had to prove herself every moment of every day…

Combining sinister mastery, exotic locales, daring adventure, spectacular high fantasy concepts and appallingly low puns and slapstick, this tale has translated extremely well to the comics medium (but that’s no reason not to read the books too) with a clever plot and characters that are both engaging and grotesquely vulgar – perfect fare for kids. I especially admire the kleptomaniac dwarf Mulch Diggum, whose species’ self-defence mechanism consists of overwhelming explosive flatulence…

Farting, fighting and fantasy are pretty much the perfect combination for kid’s fiction and boys especially will revel in the unrestrained power of the wicked lead character. This is a little gem from a fabulously imaginative creator and an unrelentingly rewarding publisher. Long may you all reign…
Text © 2007 Eoin Colfer. Illustrations © 2007 Giovanni Rigano. All rights reserved.

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Robin the Teen Wonder


By various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-1402-2255-0

Here’s a good example of some poor thinking: a book dedicated to reproducing representative samplings of the adventures of four extraordinary kids who have worn the mantle of the Dark Knight’s effervescent partner. Sadly the selections in this volume are pitifully, fatally flawed.

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 orphan under his scalloped wing and trained him to fight crime has been told, retold and revised many times, and this volume begins with ‘Choice’ an impressively potent reinterpretation by Denny O’Neil and Dave Taylor which first saw print in Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #100.

The child Dick 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 an aspirational junior hero for young readers to identify with had inspired an uncountable number of costumed sidekicks and kid crusaders throughout the industry, and he continued in this role 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 (issues #65-130, collected as part the DC Archives line and something I really should review too), 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 series Batman Family. During the 1980s the young hero led the revival of the Teen Titans, re-established a turbulent working relationship with Batman and reinvented himself as Nightwing. This of course left the post and role of Robin open…

‘Only Robins have Wings’ by Scott Beatty, Chuck Dixon, Scott McDaniel & Andy Owen (Nightwing #101) retrofits that 1970s break-up for 21st century readers in a strident but thoroughly entertaining manner, before the book takes a comprehensive downturn with a tale of the second Robin…

After Grayson’s departure Batman worked alone until he caught a streetwise young urchin trying to steel the Batmobile’s hubcaps. 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…

The story selected to represent the lad here is a poor choice, however. This is not to say that ‘A Death in the Family’ is a lesser tale: far from it, and Jim Starlin, Jim Aparo and Mike DeCarlo’s landmark, controversial story of the murder of brash, bright Jason Todd by the Joker shook the industry and still stands the test of time. However all that’s included here is the final, fifth chapter, and even I, having read it many times, was bewildered as to what was going on.

Already collected in a complete A Death in the Family volume, this snippet – which hardly features Todd at all – could so easily have been replaced by one of the six-odd year’s worth of rip-snorting adventures (including a memorable run by Mike W. Barr, Alan Davis and Paul Neary) – and would it have been so hard to cobble up a couple of synopsis or précis pages to bring new readers up to speed?

The third Robin was Tim Drake, a child prodigy who deduced Batman’s secret identity and impending guilt-fuelled nervous breakdown, subsequently attempting to manipulate Dick Grayson into returning as the Dark Knight’s partner in another multi-part saga ‘A Lonely Place of Dying’ (Batman #440-442 and New Teen Titans #60-61.

After a long period of training and acclimation Batman offered Tim the job instead, and this interpretation took fans by storm, securing a series of increasingly impressive solo mini-series (see Robin: a Hero Reborn) and eventually his own long-running comic book.

Before we experience that transition however, James Robinson and Lee Weeks here contribute an evocative vignette retroactively exploring the deceased Jason Todd in ‘A Great Day for Everyone’ (also from Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #100, I think) before once more we have to sit through a baffling conclusion from an already published graphic novel: the fifth chapter of the aforementioned ‘A Lonely Place of Dying’ by Marv Wolfman, George Pérez, Aparo and DeCarlo, from Batman #442.

Being trained by Batman is clearly an arduous undertaking: by the time of ‘A Life More Ordinary’ (from Robin #126, by Bill Willingham and Damion Scott), Drake too is increasingly estranged from his moody mentor and forcibly retired from the fights ‘n’ tights game. Batman replaces Tim with Stephanie Brown, daughter of the criminal Cluemaster, who became the vigilante Spoiler to compensate for her father’s depredations. Don’t get too excited though, since we only see her as the fourth Robin for a fraction over six pages…

Of course she doesn’t last and soon Tim is back – ‘though you won’t see how or why here – setting up on his own as defender of the city of Blüdhaven. ‘Too Many Ghosts’ (Robin #132 – and for the complete story see Robin/Batgirl: Fresh Blood) is a somewhat abridged version of the brilliant tale by Willingham and Scott, fast paced and thoroughly readable but again, inconclusive and incomplete.

This book concludes with ‘Life and Death’ from Teen Titans #29 by Geoff Johns, Tony S. Daniel & Marlo Alquiza, but if you need to know when Jason Todd came back from the dead, how he grew up into the savagely villainous Red Hood and why decided to beat Tim Drake/Robin to a pulp you’re in for something of a disappointment. Although a spectacular battle of old versus new, there’s little beyond that to edify the readers…

User-unfriendly packages like this do nobody any favours: talented creators and great characters look unprofessional and readers are bewildered and short-changed. This could so easily have been a treasured celebration of a groundbreaking concept immortally renewed, but instead feels just like the “previously on” segments that TV shows use to remind already regular fans and which always precede the real content…

A regrettable waste of everybody’s time and effort…

© 1988, 1989, 1997, 2004, 2005, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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JSA volume 6: Savage Times


By Geoff Johns, David Goyer, Leonard Kirk & Keith Champagne (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-84023-984-0
New Extended Review

When they’re producing what their confirmed readership wants, today’s mainstream comics publishers seem to be on comfortably solid ground, so perhaps I shouldn’t be so harsh in my judgements when they seemingly go berserk with multi-part, braided mega-crossovers. The tale collected as Savage Times is top notch, well crafted, standard comic book fare, but I just can’t escape the nagging worry that by only regurgitating the past – no matter how well – ultimately you’re only diminishing the business and the medium.

This volume gathers together issues #39-45 of the monthly JSA title, and as costumed capers go, it is a saga packed with action, excitement, soap opera tension , humour and that heady mix of continuity in-filling we fan-boys adore…

The drama begins with two stand-alone tales ‘Power Crush’ by Goyer, Johns, Patrick Gleason and Christian Alamy, starring the unfeasibly pneumatic and feisty Power Girl as she deals in characteristically direct manner with a metahuman stalker obsessed with her prodigious physical charms, before moving into far more sinister territory with ‘…Do No Harm’ (by Leonard Kirk & Keith Champagne who also illustrated the rest of this book) as Star-Spangled Kid and Captain Marvel must use extreme care to rescue an entire school from a sadistic telepathic suicide bomber, whilst Doctor Mid-Nite struggles to keep the monster’s geriatric master alive on the operating table…

The main event begins in the ‘Unborn Hour’ as a time-travelling villain accidentally shifts some of the Justice Society back to 1944 and a climactic meeting with the first Mister Terrific. In ‘Paradox Play’ the malfunctioning time vehicle sends Captain Marvel to ancient Egypt, and after defeating the chronal marauder, Hawkgirl and Terrific’s modern successor follow the world’s mightiest mortal into a spectacular confrontation with the immortal conqueror Vandal Savage and an elemental metamorph determined to lay waste the Black Lands.

Meanwhile the new Doctor Fate is in another dimension seeking answers to the mystery of his comatose wife…

‘Yesterday’s War’ unites the modern heroes with Egypt’s champions Nabu, Prince Khufu, Chay-Ara (Hawkgirl’s own earlier incarnation) and Black Adam – who is both hero and villain in the JSA’s own time – but as the war goes against the beleaguered defenders Marvel and Adam are dispatched to the Land of the Dead to seek godly aid in ‘The Tears of Ra’, wherein the Black Marvel’s tragic history is poignantly revealed…

With Savage defeated and history restored, the book closes on a treble cliffhanger in ‘Princes of Darkness Prologue: Peacemakers’ as Doctor Fate returns to discover the true nature of the woman he believed to be his long-lost wife, the genocidal terrorist Kobra smugly escapes his long-deserved fate and the Society’s most powerful foe reveals how he has manipulated the team from the start…

It’s always unsatisfying to reach the end of a book but not the story, so even though this is a class superhero act it is hard to not feel a bit resentful, even though the next volume promises everything a fan could wish for.

At least the thing has already been published. Maybe you shouldn’t wait for my impending follow-up graphic novel review but just get this book and JSA: Princes of Darkness right away…
© 2002, 2003 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The All-New Atom: The Hunt for Ray Palmer


By Gail Simone, Mike Norton, Dan Green & Trevor Scott (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1782-2

After the events of Identity Crisis and 52, size-changing physicist Professor Ray Palmer disappeared, leaving his world behind him. But life goes on, and his teaching chair at Ivy University was offered to a young prodigy from Hong Kong who just happened to be Palmer’s pen-friend and confidante: privy to his predecessor’s secrets ever since he was a child.

This neophyte, Ryan Choi, soon inherited his predecessor’s super-hero career as well – under some rather suspicious circumstances – battling super-villains, monsters and seemingly random chronal catastrophes that are making Ivy Town a viper’s nest of bizarre occurrences.

With this third volume (collecting issues #12-16 of the much missed All-New Atom comic-book) the so-likable legacy hero joins an eccentric team of heroes to track down his missing mentor in a story-arc that coincides with the events of the mega-crossover ‘Countdown to Final Crisis.’

Written by the always enjoyable Gail Simone and illustrated by Mike Norton, Dan Green and Trevor Scott, the saga begins with ‘Never Too Small to Hit the Big Time’ as shrinking homicidal maniac Dwarfstar returns, swiftly followed by a gallery of Palmer’s oddly unique Rogue’s Gallery. Temporal anomalies are devastating the city and Choi’s only chance to sort it all is the creepily coincidental alliance offered by the legendary time-thief Chronos…

‘Second Genesis’ finds Choi and that Tempus Fugitive lost in the South American jungles encountering the tiny alien barbarians Palmer once lived with (see Sword of the Atom) before the new Tiny Titan links up with Donna Troy, Jason Todd and the Monitor (protagonists of the aforementioned Countdown to Final Crisis) joining forces in a search of the entire multiverse. First stop in ‘Heavens to Bitsy’ takes them from the super-scientific civilisation located on the bottom of Choi’s pet dog (no not his underside, the bit by the tail…) and from there to the paradise where all dead superheroes go – featuring cameos from a host of departed DC stars…

Nothing is as it seems though, and by the time they reach neutral ground and a rendezvous with Green Lantern Kyle Rayner it’s clear that something is sabotaging them. ‘Loss Leader’ sees Choi impossibly yanked from his quest and returned to Earth to save Ivy Town from the effects of the accelerating time-storm one: of the funniest and grossest hero exploits ever recorded – or as Choi puts it “Ewwww…”

The book ends on a hilarious action-packed high note with ‘Forward! Into the Past!’ as more hints on the mastermind behind all the Atom’s troubles are revealed when Ivy Town takes a reality-warping, mind-bending trip back into the Summer of Love. Ghosts, aliens, monsters, naff villains and Hippies, plus a guest-shot for the clearly inadequate guardians of the Time Stream, the Linear Men: this fun-filled frantic frolic is a joyous return to clever, light-hearted adventure.

These tales are everything a jaded superhero fan needs to clear the palate and revive flagging interests. Get them all!

© 2007, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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JSA volume 5: Stealing Thunder


By Geoff Johns, David Goyer & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-667-5

The groundbreaking reinvention of the World’s first super-team continued apace with these compelling thrillers which originally appeared in JSA #32-38, beginning with a chilling peek into the life of the new Crimson Avenger: a haunted woman compelled to hunt down murderers by her own magic guns. Her irresistible compulsion has brought her to her next target – one of the Society’s greatest heroes…

‘Death Duty’ is illustrated by Peter Snejbjerg who also provided the pictures for the ‘Stealing Thunder Prologue’ wherein octogenarian hero Johnny Thunder, miraculously cured of senile dementia, reclaimed his magical Thunderbolt genie from his successor Jakeem. Unfortunately it’s all a macabre plot constructed by the body-hopping Ultra-Humanite…

The epic begins in ‘Wish Fulfillment’ (with art by Keith Giffen & Al Milgrom, Leonard Kirk & Keith Champagne), as, an unspecified time later, silicon superhero Sand awakens to discover that the Ultra-Humanite has usurped the power of the Thunderbolt and taken control of Earth. Those superbeings not directly mind-controlled and used as storm troopers are all stored in a giant body-bank.

Escaping with homicidal foe the Icicle in tow, Sand accidentally makes contact with the last free minds on the planet: Jakeem, Crimson Avenger, Power Girl, Hourman and Captain Marvel…

Kirk and Champagne continue in ‘Troublestruck’, ‘Lightning Storm’ and ‘Time-Bound’ as the desperate rebels risk everything to liberate the enslaved electric genie whilst being pursued by an murderous armada of their oldest friends before the tragic, spectacular finale returns the World to its original state in ‘Crossing Over’.

This volume ends with one of those touching “after the Apocalypse” tales: quiet, reflective and focusing on the heirs of lost heroes as Jakeem and the second Hourman contemplate their legacies and new responsibilities on ‘Father’s Day’, movingly illustrated by Stephen Sadowski and Andrew Pepoy.

By this time a fully realised superhero soap opera, Geoff Johns and the soon to depart David Goyer had made the Justice Society of America a stunning mix of old and new by blending cosmic action and human scaled drama with a memorable cast of characters. These tales are among the very best “fights and tights” adventures in contemporary comics, and should be on every old fan and potential convert’s “must-have” list.

© 2002, 2003 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Captain Britain: the Siege of Camelot


By various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-433-1

This fourth wonderful volume collecting the complete adventures of Marvel’s Greatest British super-hero gathers together the remaining black and white episodes of The Black Knight strip from Hulk Comic (# 42-55 and 57-63, 1979) in which Captain Britain co-starred, before going on to his peripatetic wanderings through a number of UK titles beginning with Marvel Super Heroes #377-389 and continuing in The Daredevils #1-11. Eventually he got his own second short-lived title, but that’s a bunch of tales for another time and hopefully a future graphic novel review…

The Lion of Albion was in character limbo until March 1979, when a new British weekly, Hulk Comic, launched with an eclectic, if not eccentric, mix of Marvel reprints the editors felt better suited the British market. There were some all-new strips featuring Marvel characters tailored, like the reprints, to appeal to UK kids.

The Hulk was there because of his TV show, Nick Fury (drawn by the incredibly young Steve Dillon) – because Brits love their spies, and the all-original period pulp thriller Night Raven by David Lloyd, John Bolton and Steve Parkhouse. Hidden deep within and almost trying not to be noticed was The Black Knight.

The Knight was a sometime member of the super-team The Mighty Avengers but in this engrossing epic, costumed shenanigans were replaced by a classical fantasy quest which began in modern Britain but soon evolved into a desperate search through the Tolkien-esque (or perhaps Alan Garner derived) myth-scape of legendary England in a last ditch attempt to save the soul of the land by locating the spirit of our Arthurian/Celtic roots. At that time the addled wits and broken soul of Captain Britain would also be restored…

This comprehensive volume continues and concludes the quest with the discovery of Camelot, the rebirth of the legendary King (originally seen in issues #42-55 and #57 through 63 at which time Hulk Comic folded) and a cataclysmic last battle with the forces of evil. These two and three page episodes are a truly classy act executed with great panache by writer Steve Parkhouse and John Stokes (with occasional penciling from the multi-talented Paul Neary) which captured the imagination of the readership, becoming the longest-running original strip in the comic (even The Hulk itself reverted to reprints by #28) and often stole the cover spot from the lead feature.

After a brief informative afterword and some impressive colour covers – including a pin-up of Captains Britain and America by Jack Kirby – the drama resumes with the return of Captain Britain, revamped and redesigned by Editor/plotter Neary and a new creative team; neophytes writer Dave Thorpe and artist Alan Davis for the monthly reprint anthology Marvel Super-Heroes (#377, September 1981).

Lost in the gaps between alternate worlds the hero and his elf sidekick Jackdaw are drawn back to Earth but upon arrival they discover it is a hideous parody of Britain, bleak, distressed, hopeless and depressed – a potent analogue of the country Margaret Thatcher was then dismantling. Thorpe’s desire to inject some subversive social realism into the feature – and the resistance he endured – is documented in his commentary in this volume but suffice to say that although the analogies and allegories are there to be seen, pressure was exerted to keep the strip as escapist as possible, and avoid any controversy…

That’s not to say that the awkward-but-improving-with-every-page tales weren’t a dynamic, entertaining breath of fresh air, with striking superhero art delivering a far more British flavour of adventure. In short order the confused Captain met anarchic bandits The Crazy Gang, reality-warping mutant Mad Jim Jaspers, British Nazis and a truly distressed population in ‘Outcasts’ (MSH #378), an animated rubbish monster (‘The Junkheap that Walked Like a Man’ (#379), and was introduced to the pan-Reality colossus The Dimensional Development Court and its sultry, ruthless operative Opal Luna Saturnyne, who intended to compulsorily evolve the whole dimension, beginning with ‘In Support of Darwin!’, ‘Re-Birth!’, ‘Against the Realm’ and ‘Faces of Britain!’ #380-383).

‘Friends and Neighbours’ is a pretty-looking and thoroughly de-clawed examination of sectarianism and racism (see Thorpe’s commentary for clarification) which was followed in #385 by an “untold tale” by Neary and Davis. To get the saga back on track this diversion related an event that occurred in Limbo – the ‘Attack of the Binary Beings!’

Now deeply involved in Saturnyne’s plan to make humanity evolve (just like forcing Rhubarb) Captain Britain was trapped in a clash between the underclasses and the government in Thorpe’s last story ‘If the Push Should Fail?’ which heralded the beginning of Alan Moore’s landmark tenure on the character.

Marvel Super-Heroes #387 is the first of the full-colour tales in this volume (presumably thanks to the frequent reprinting of these stories in America), and instantly kicks the series into high gear with ‘A Crooked World’ as the dying dimension unleashes its greatest weapon: a relentless, unstoppable artificial killer called the Fury.

Killing Jackdaw, reintroducing Jim Jaspers and setting the scene for a monolithic epic in ‘Graveyard Shift’ by vaporising Captain Britain, the series then folded.

After a brief text interlude from Mr. Moore (from Marvel Super-Heroes #389) the saga started again in a new home, as the lead feature in The Daredevils #1, with a revelatory new origin ‘A Rag, a Bone, a Hank of Hair…’ and a rebuilt hero returned to his own Earth just in time to see that world assaulted by another reality-warping Jim Jaspers intent on destroying all superbeings in ‘An Englishman’s Home…’

In issue #3 Brian Braddock’s sister Betsy reappeared in ‘Thicker than Water’ a purple-haired telepath being hunted by an assassin destroying all the old esper-agents recruited by British covert agency S.T.R.I.K.E – and yes she is the girl who became Psylocke of the X-Men. The battle against the killer Slaymaster concluded in a spectacular in-joke clash among the shelves of the Denmark Street Forbidden Planet – in 1982 arguably the country’s best fantasy store – so any old fans might want to try identifying the real staff members who “guest-star” – in ‘Killing Ground.’

Keen on creating a cohesive Marvel UK universe the Alan’s brought back another creation for their next tale. The Special Executive was a team of time-travelling mercenaries introduced in Dr. Who Monthly #51 (April, 1981), and in ‘Target: Captain Britain – Recommendation: Executive Action’ saw the legion of super-weirdoes dispatched to Braddock Manor to forcibly bring the hero as a witness in the trial of Saturnyne by the Supreme Omniversal Tribune in ‘Judgement Day’.

Meeting a number of alternate selves such as Captains Albion and England was disturbing enough but the trial was a sham, merely rubber-stamping the accession of Saturnyne’s successor Mandragon. His first act was to destroy the tainted universe that failed to evolve in The Push. Unfortunately for everybody the Fury survived, falling into another universe where it began again to eradicate all heroes…

Issue #7 ‘Rough Justice’ found Britain and the Special Executive in the middle of a pan-dimensional brawl to save Saturnyne whilst back on (his own) Earth, a woman was plagued by dreams of the Fury and Jaspers. In ‘Rivals’ the defenders finally escape back home to find the woman – Captain UK of the recently destroyed alternate universe – waiting with a warning and a prediction…

The Daredevils #9, ‘Waiting for the End of the World’ begins the final story-arc in this volume (and starts a plot picked-up by Chris Claremont for about ten years worth of X-Men and Excalibur storylines), a fascinating compelling war against an invincible, implacable foe, which was truly shocking at the time and still carries a potent emotional punch now, as cast-members and fan-favourites were slaughtered in the Fury’s unstoppable onslaught.

‘The Sound and the Fury’ continues the murderous mayhem before a surprise hero saves the day in the epic ‘But They Never Really Die’ to perfectly wrap up the story just in time for the Captain and his surviving crew to return in his own comic.

With the inclusion of some insightful and elucidating text pieces and plenty of cover reproductions this fourth volume of the chronicles of Captain Britain sees the character finally reach the heights of his potential. Here is not only a wonderful nostalgic collection for old-timers and dedicated fans but also a book full of the best that comics can offer in terms of artistry, imagination and gripping creative energy.

Some of the very best material produced by Marvel, this is a book every reader must have…

© 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 2009 Marvel Entertainment, Inc. and its subsidiaries, licensed by Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (A British edition from PANINI UK LTD)

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Graylight


By Naomi Nowak (NBM)
ISBN13: 978-1-56163-567-2

There are a number of uncomfortable if not altogether unpleasant truisms that still dominate the narrative arts, particularly in terms of gender appeasement: most prevalent and dominant of those – after “chuck in some sex scenes” – are “males need to see mindless action as often as possible” and “women require moments of pretty, contemplative stillness in their stories.”

Mercifully these Hollywood-originated dictums are being challenged and disproved in recent years (just take a look at the frighteningly charged stillness of the “quiet bits” in such European screen gems as “Wallander”), especially in the burgeoning and still largely experimental graphic novel market, where the rules of narration are still being discovered…

In her third book, Graylight, painter and illustrator Naomi Nowak composes another dreamy, symbol-drenched inquiry into the complexities of love in a surreal, quasi-mystical tale of a troubled young woman whose complacency and bad habits get her into an unimaginable amount of difficulty.

Sasha is beautiful, affable, friendly, utterly self-absorbed and an unrepentant thief. If she sees something see likes, she simply knows it will be better off with her. Sadly that can also apply to people as well as objects…

Years ago, a man killed himself, and his widow swore to their infant son Edmund that she would always protect her baby boy from bad things – such as women who drive their husbands to their deaths…

As usual Sasha is the centre of attention in the bar when the journalist Erik spots her. She is holding court, shocking friends with her honesty about how wicked she is. She can feel no remorse for taking the things she wants. Erik is in town to interview a reclusive author, Aurora, and besotted with Sasha, brings her with him as his “photographer.”

The interview goes badly. Aurora is hostile and has a son nobody knew of: a sheltered young man called Edmund, who is protective of his mother but drawn to the moodily effervescent Sasha. Flirting with the reclusive boy as a matter of habit, Sasha is most attracted to an antique book, so she takes it.

Edmund sets out to retrieve the book but is increasingly ensnared in Sasha’s charismatic spell. Aurora, seeing Sasha to be just the kind of woman she swore to protect her son from, knows a few spells of her own, and is quite prepared to use any and every means to keep her ancient promise…

Colourful in misty pastels and shockingly bold lines, this oneiric, supernaturally-tinged drama blends the sensibilities of shōjo manga (romantic stories for young girls) with the bleak, moody naturalism of Scandinavian landscape painting and the rich, sexually charged texture of teen soap operas to produce a compellingly sinister love story of desire and consequence that is lyrical, often reflective and occasionally pretentious, but always eminently readable and totally beautiful to look upon.

And here’s my point: this quiet, contemplative breed of graphic narrative has a great deal to offer the reader looking for something a little different. As an old unrepentant heterosexual male I felt no need for a fistfight or car chase to keep my attention from wandering, and those dreamy, floaty moments greatly added to the atmosphere and mood. If the action is starting to pall, why not try a little mood magic…?

© 2007 Naomi Nowak. All Rights Reserved.