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The Helltrekkers


By John Wagner, Alan Grant, Horacio Lalia, Jose Ortiz & various (Rebellion)
ISBN: 978-1786187963 (Rebellion 2000 AD)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

This book also includes Discriminatory Content included for comedic and dramatic effect.

Britain’s last great comic icon has been described as a combination of the other two, merging the futuristic milieu and thrills of Dan Dare with the shocking anarchy and irreverent absurdity of Dennis the Menace. He’s also well on the way to becoming the longest-lasting adventure character in our admittedly meagre comics pantheon, having been continually published every week since February 1977 when he first appeared in the second weekly issue of science-fiction anthology 2000AD. As such, he’s also spawned a rich world where other stars have been born and thrived…

Judge Dredd and the ever-expanding, ultra-dystopian environs of Mega-City One were devised by a creative committee including Pat Mills, Kelvin Gosnell, Carlos Ezquerra, Mike McMahon and many others, with the major contribution coming from legendary writer John Wagner, who has written the largest portion of the canon under his own and via several pseudonymous names.

In a 22nd century America, Joe Dredd is a fanatically dedicated sentinel of the super-city, where hundreds of millions of citizens idle away their days stacked like artificial cordwood in a world where robots are cheaper and more efficient than humans and jobs are both beloved pastime and treasured commodity. Boredom has reached epidemic proportions and every citizen is just one askance glance away from meltdown or blow-up. Judges are peacekeepers maintaining – actually enforcing – order and passivity at all costs: investigating, taking action and trying all crimes and disturbances to the hard-won equilibrium of the constantly boiling melting pot.

Justice is always immediate. They are necessary fascists in a world permanently teetering on the edge of catastrophe, and sadly, what far too many readers never realised is that the entire milieu is a gigantic satirical black comedy with oodles of outrageous, vicariously cathartic action. Just keep telling yourself, some situations demand drastic solutions. It’s what all politicians and world leaders do…

As hometowns go, Mega-City One does not generally engender fond feelings or happy memories, but thankfully does lend itself to all manner of stories from supernatural thrillers to cop procedurals to savagely satirical social broadsides. It’s a place where any kind of tale is begging to be told. Thus John Wagner, Alan Grant & Horacio Lalia’s Helltrekkers – a no-nonsense sci fi thriller B-feature masquerading as a future western and the first serial spin-off from the burgeoning Dredd universe (Dreddiverse?) to not focus on Judges and perps but rather the pitiful proles they pacify and push around. This tome collects the strips from 2000 AD progs 387-415. and was popular enough in its day to win a rotating spot in the comic’s coveted colour section, meaning alternating monochrome and technicolour moments of mirth and madness.

The ancillary feature was written by Alan Grant with regular writing partner John Wagner, co-scribing the voyage as enigmatic “F. Martin Candor” and visually kicked off by fantasy stalwart José Ortiz before Horacio Lalia waded in to illustrate the majority of episodes from the second onwards. This collection offers a note of gloriously gory circularity to proceedings, by closing with a brace of full colour Ortiz “Star Scan” recap features as seen in Progs #387-388 as well as a Lalia cover gallery…

José Ortiz Moya’s 60 plus year career began after he won a contest in Spanish magazine Chicos. During the 1950s, he worked on many digest strips for Editorial Maga, including Capitan Don Nadie, Pantera Negra and Jungla. Agency work saw him produce several strips for foreign publishers, particularly Britain where he illustrated Caroline Barker, Barrister at Law for The Daily Express, Smokeman and UFO Agent for Eagle magazine and The Phantom Viking in anthological top seller Lion. During the 1970s & 1980s Ortiz worked on several popular British strips including The Tower King and House of Daemon for the new Eagle, Rogue Trooper and Judge Dredd for 2000 AD and The Thirteenth Floor for Scream! This last was another stunning horror-show Ortiz co-created with Wagner & Grant.

Whilst doing all of this work on UK kid’s comics, in the US Ortiz was also working on – and is arguably best known – for illustrating stories for Warren’s horror titles, especially Eerie and Vampirella.

Born January 28th 1941, Horacio Nestor Lalia made his first professional sale in 1964 to Hora Cero, and began an association with publisher Columba a year later. After assisting Argentinian comics stars Eugenio Zoppi (Mysterix, Zig Zag, Lord Cochrane) and Alberto Breccia (The Eternaut, Ernie Pike, Sherlock Time, Mort Cinder) in 1966 Lalia started agency work for the Solano Lopez studios on strips for the UK market: generally war stories released by Fleetway. He moved on in 1968, but returned to British comics in the late 1970s, mostly Future Shock stories in 2000 AD.

In 1975 Lalia became a main illustrator for publisher Record but continued working in UK comics and elsewhere. This included for Eura in Italy, Spain’s Norma, Bastei in Germany and France’s Albin Michel whilst simultaneously contributing to Argentinian daily La Razón and Spanish publishing house Bruguera.

So as if Judges, mutants and dinosaurs aren’t enough for you, what’s this all about?

Fed up with their appalling lives in Mega-City One, a doughty band of bold pioneering families – each with their own sordid baggage and backstories – opt to escape civilisation’s dubious security and cross the “Cursed Earth” in heavily-armoured mobile homes in search of a better life and (possibly) less lethal promised land…

Led by – and unfolding via the narrated records of – Trekkmaster Lucas Rudd and assorted survivors, the tale opens with Ortiz draughting the dawn departure of 28 Radwagons carrying 111 former citizens from the city’s West Gate 13. Ignoring Judge advice, the doomed hopefuls are ready to voyage 2000 kilometres to the highly speculative – if perhaps fully fictional – “New Territories”.

Reasons for departure range from painful to tragic. The Glemps want somewhere to raise their mutant baby free from shame, whilst hillbilly criminal clan the Nebbs are getting out before the Judges finally get something actionable on them. The mutual goal lies across a nuke-ravaged, devasted radiation desert left after the war that ended civilisation. Somehow this trackless wasteland can still support life – as represented by mutant enclaves and would-be messiahs, bandit camps, fugitives from Judge justice, hermit hideaways, and the detritus of abandoned science projects. They include resurrected and reconditioned dinosaurs and other abandoned megafauna who have carried on evolving, plus all manner of fresh and interesting lifeforms and monsters guaranteed to keep the Helltrekking lively and never dull…

Veteran guide Banjo Quint rides with the Rudds – Lucas, his wife Amber and son Bud – in the lead wagon, seeking to ride roughshod on the most mismatched, unsuitable and unlikely re-settlers he’s ever seen. Unprepared idiots addicted to a dream, the waggoners are uniformly menaces to themselves and others: a perfect snapshot of why humanity is doomed. That’s confirmed on day one on reaching abandoned theme park Sauron Valley to learn that resurrected dinosaurs are magnificent and tasty. A little later their knowledge expands further as they discover T-Rexes bear grudges, hunt in packs and will stalk prey for thousands of klicks just to get more of that choice, yummy human flavour…

Family units like the Turtles, Lovejoys, Diefenakers, Jumbys, Clampeets, Zapoteks, and Koosh merge but seldom mix, and don’t associate with single seekers like utterly unprepared Mo-Pad hobbyist Rollo Peterson or proper weirdoes like circus family the Hubbles or the hippie Guppy Commune… at least outside of the increasingly common sunset mass-buryings. The Nebbs in Wagon 17 are really a menace to others and seemingly regard their fellow pioneers as an expendable emergency resource. Their selfish wayward antics cause as many fatalities as “natural” Cursed Earth threats like dino herds, radiological diseases such as Black Scab, radioactive smog, sucking patches of quick-quag, flesh-melting acid rainstorms, predatory “mutie” tribes and fugitive criminals from the Mega cities…

It’s no wonder Quint doesn’t make it far past St Louis. The halfway point, it’s only seen by 72 trekkers and as the quest stubbornly continues, that death toll inexorably mounts…

Crafted during the bleakest moments of the last third of the Cold War and unswervingly based on classic western prairie wagon train tales, albeit amped to a mordantly dark and satirically trenchant high point, the grimly attritional saga of the Helltrekkers and its frankly unexpectedly upbeat conclusion is a pure piece of politicized polemic as cathartic entertainment: subversively hilarious, frequently deeply moving and rendered with appropriately stark line and whimsical imagination.

The kind of tale that made 2000 AD such a reliably revolutionary read and anarchically rebellious outpost of dissident counter culture, this complete collection comes with a chilling realisation that maybe those days aren’t over yet…
© 1984, 1985, 2022 & 2023 Rebellion 2000 AD Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Showcase Presents The Elongated Man


By John Broome, Gardner Fox, John Broome, Carmine Infantino, Murphy Anderson, Irv Novick, Gil Kane, Neal Adams, Mike Sekowsky, Sid Greene & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1042-2 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

There are a bunch of comics anniversaries this year. Some of the most significant will be rightly celebrated, but a few are going to be unjustly ignored. As a feverish fanboy wedged firmly in the past, I’m again abusing my privileges here to carp about another brilliant vintage book, criminally out of print and not slated for revival either physically or in digital formats…

Once upon a time, American comics editors believed readers would become jaded if any characters were over-used or over-exposed. To combat that potential danger – and for sundry other commercial and economic reasons – they developed back-up features in most of their titles. By the mid-1960s the policy was largely abandoned as resurgent superheroes sprang up everywhere and readers just couldn’t get enough – but there were still one or two memorable holdouts.

In late 1963 Julius Schwartz took editorial control of Batman and Detective Comics and finally found a place for a character who had been lying mostly fallow ever since his debut as a very long-legged walk-on in the April/May 1960 Flash. The Elongated Man was Ralph Dibny: a circus-performer who discovered an additive in popular soft drink Gingold which seemed to give certain people increased muscular flexibility. Intrigued, Dibny isolated and refined the chemical additive until he had developed a serum which granting him the ability to stretch, bend and compress his body to an incredible degree. Then Ralph had to decide how to use his new powers…

A quirky chap with his own small but passionate band of devotees, in recent years the perennial B-lister became a fixture of the latest Flash TV series, but his many exploits are still largely uncollected in any format. The only archival asset is this charming, witty and very pretty compilation gathering his debut and guest appearances from Flash issues #112, 115, 119, 124, 130, 134, and 138 (spanning cover-dates April/May 1960 to August 1963) plus the Stretchable Sleuth’s entire scintillating run from Detective Comics #327-371 (comprising May 1964 to January 1968).

Designed as a modern take on Jack Cole’s immensely popular Golden Age champion Plastic Man, Dibny debuted in a cunningly crafted crime caper by John Broome, Carmine Infantino & Joe Giella. Flash #112 went on sale February 25th 1960, cover featuring ‘The Mystery of the Elongated Man!’ He was presented as a mysterious, masked yet attention-seeking elastic do-gooder, of whom the Scarlet Speedster was nonetheless highly suspicious…

Proving himself virtuous, Dibny returned in #115 (September 1960, inked by Murphy Anderson) when aliens attempt to conquer the Earth and the Vizier of Velocity needs ‘The Elongated Man’s Secret Weapon!’ as well as the guest-star himself to save the day. In Flash #119 (March 1961), Flash rescues the vanished hero from ‘The Elongated Man’s Undersea Trap!’, thereby introducing vivacious and deadly smart Sue Dibny as a newlywed “Mrs Elongated Man”) in a stirring saga of subsea alien slavers by regular creative team Broome, Infantino & Giella. The threat was again extraterrestrial with #124’s alien invasion thriller ‘Space-Boomerang Trap!’ (November 1961), featuring an uneasy alliance between the Scarlet Speedster, Elastic Investigator and sinister rogue Captain Boomerang, who naturally couldn’t be trusted as far as you could throw him. Ralph collaborated with Flash’s junior partner in #130 (August 1962) only just defeating the wily Weather Wizard when ‘Kid Flash Meets the Elongated Man!’ before bounding back into action with – and against – the senior speedster in Flash #134 (February 1963). Seemingly allied with Captain Cold in ‘The Man Who Mastered Absolute Zero!’, Dibny excelled in an epic thriller that almost ended his heroic career…

Gardner Fox scripted ‘The Pied Piper’s Double Doom!’ in Flash #138 (August 1963), a mesmerising team-up seeing both Elongated Man and the Monarch of Motion enslaved by the sinister Sultan of Sound, before ingenuity and justice ultimately prevailed. Soon after, when a back-up spot opened in Detective Comics (previously held by Martian Manhunter since 1955 and only vacated because J’onn J’onzz was promoted to lead feature in House of Mystery), Schwartz had Ralph slightly reconfigured becoming a flamboyant, fame-hungry, brilliantly canny globe-trotting private eye solving mysteries for the sheer fun of it.

Aided by his equally smart, thoroughly grounded wife, the short tales were patterned on classic Thin Man filmic escapades of Nick and Norah Charles, blending clever, impossible crimes with slick sleuthing, all garnished with the outré heroic permutations and frantic physical antics first perfected in Plastic Man. These complex yet uncomplicated sorties, drenched in fanciful charm and sly dry wit, began in Detective #327 (May 1964) with ‘Ten Miles to Nowhere!’ (by Fox & Infantino, who inked himself for all early episodes). Here Ralph, who had publicly unmasked to become a (regrettably minor) celebrity, discovered someone had been stealing his car every night and bringing it back as if nothing had happened. Of course, it had to be a clever criminal plot of some sort…

A month later he solved the ‘Curious Case of the Barn-door Bandit!’, debuting his direly distressing signature trademark of manically twitching his expanded nose whenever he detects “the scent of mystery in the air”. Then he heads for cowboy country to unravel the ‘Puzzle of the Purple Pony!’ and play cupid for a young couple hunting a gold mine in #329.

Ralph & Sue were on an extended honeymoon tour, making him the only costumed hero without a city to protect. On reaching California, Ralph is embroiled in a ‘Desert Double-Cross!’ when hostage-taking thieves raid the home of a wealthy recluse, after which Detective #331 offered a rare full-length story in ‘Museum of Mixed-Up Men!’ (Fox, Infantino & Joe Giella) as Batman, Robin and Ralph unite against a super-scientific felon able to steal memories and reshape victims’ faces. Returned to his solo support role in #332, the Ductile Detective then discovers Sue has been replaced by an alien in ‘The Elongated Man’s Other-World Wife!’ (with Sid Greene joining as new permanent inker). Of course, nothing is as it seems…

‘The Robbery That Never Happened!’ occurred when a jewellery store customer suspiciously claims he had been given too much change, before ‘Battle of the Elongated Weapons!’ (#334) concentrates on a crook who adapts Ralph’s Gingold serum to affect objects, after which bombastic battle it’s back to mystery-solving as EM is invited by Fairview City to round up a brazen bunch of uncatchable bandits in ‘Break Up of the Bottleneck Gang!’ While visiting Central City again, Ralph is lured to the Mirror Master’s old lair and only barely survives ‘The House of “Flashy” Traps!’ before risking certain death in the ‘Case of the 20 Grand Pay-off!’ after replacing Sue with a look-alike – for the best possible reasons – but without her knowledge or permission…

Narrowly surviving his wife’s wrath by turning the American tour into a World cruise, Ralph tackles the ‘Case of the Curious Compass!’ in Amsterdam, by foiling a gang of diamond smugglers before returning to the US to ferret out funny-money pushers in ‘The Counterfeit Crime-Buster!’ Similarly globe-trotting creator John Broome returned to script ‘Mystery of the Millionaire Cowboy!’ in Detective #340 (June 1965) with Ralph and Sue stumbling onto a seemingly haunted theatre and finding crooks at the heart of the matter, and ‘The Elongated Man’s Change-of-Face!’ (Fox, Infantino & Greene) finds a desperate newsman publishing fake exploits to draw the fame-fuelled hero into investigating a town under siege, before ‘The Bandits and the Baroness!’ (by Broome) has our perpetually vacationing couple check in at a resort where every other guest is a Ralph Dibny, in a classy insurance scam yarn heavy with intrigue and tension.

A second full-length team-up with Batman filled Detective Comics #343 (September 1965, by Broome, Infantino & Joe Giella). ‘The Secret War of the Phantom General!’ is a tense action-thriller pitting the hard-pressed heroes against a hidden army of gangsters and Nazi war criminals determined to take over Gotham City. Having broken Ralph’s biggest case, the happy couple head for the Continent and encounter ‘Peril in Paris!’ (Broome, Infantino & Greene) after Sue goes shopping as an ignorant monolingual American and returns a few hours later a fluent French-speaker…

Fox’s ‘Robberies in Reverse!’ boasts a baffling situation wherein shopkeepers start paying customers, leading Ralph to a severely skewed scientist’s accidental discovery, whilst #346’s ‘Peephole to the Future!’ (Broome) sees Elongated Man inexplicably develop the power of clairvoyance. It sadly clears up long before he can use it to tackle ‘The Man Who Hated Money!’ (Fox) starring a bandit who destroys every penny he steals.

‘My Wife, the Witch!’ was Greene’s last inking contribution for a nearly a year: a Fox thriller wherein Sue apparently gains magical powers whilst ‘The 13 O’Clock Robbery!’ – with Infantino again inking himself – sees Ralph walk into a bizarre mystery and deadly booby-trapped mansion, before Hal Jordan’s best friend seeks out the Stretchable Sleuth to solve the riddle of ‘Green Lantern’s Blackout!’ – an entrancing, action-packed team-up with a future Justice League colleague. ‘The Case of the Costume-made Crook!’ then finds Ralph ambushed by a felon using his old uniform as an implausible burglary tool.

Broome conceived ‘The Counter of Monte Carlo!’ as the peripatetic Dibnys fall into a colossal espionage conspiracy at the casino and afterward become pawns of a fortune teller in ‘The Puzzling Prophecies of the Tea Leaves!’ (Fox), before Broome dazzles and delights one more time with ‘The Double-Dealing Jewel Thieves!’ with a museum owner finding his imitation jewel exhibit is indeed filled with fakes…

As Fox assumed full scripting duties, mystic nomad Zatanna guest-stars in DC #355’s ‘The Tantalising Troubles of the Tripod Thieves!’ as stolen magical artefacts lead Ralph into conflict with a band of violent thugs, before ‘Truth Behind the False Faces!’ sees Infantino bow out on a high note as Elongated Man helps a beat cop to his first big bust and solves the conundrum of a criminal wax museum. Detective #357 (November 1966) featured ‘Tragedy of the Too-Lucky Thief!’ (by Fox, Murphy Anderson & Greene) as the Dibnys meet a gambler who hates to win but cannot lose, whilst Greene handled all the art on ‘The Faker-Takers of the Baker’s Dozen!’ after Sue’s latest art project leads to the theft of an ancient masterpiece.

Anderson soloed with Fox’s ‘Riddle of the Sleepytime Taxi!’, a compellingly glamorous tale of theft and espionage, before Ralph & Sue visit Swinging England (Detective #360 February 1967, by Fox & Anderson) for ‘London Caper of the Rockers and Mods!’ Meeting the reigning monarch and preventing warring kid-gangs from desecrating our most famous tourist traps, they head home to ‘The Curious Clue of the Circus Crook!’ (Greene). Here Ralph visits his old Big-Top boss and stops a rash of robberies following the show around the country. Infantino found time in his increasingly busy schedule for a few more episodes, (both inked by Greene) beginning with ‘The Horse that Hunted Hoods’: a police steed with uncanny crime solving abilities, and continuing in a ‘Way-out Day in Wishbone City!’ wherein normally solid citizens – even Sue – go temporarily insane and riot, after which unsung master Irv Novick steps in to delineate the mystery of ‘The Ship That Sank Twice!’

‘The Crooks who Captured Themselves!’ (#365, by Greene) recounts Ralph losing control of his powers before Broome & Infantino reunite one last time for ‘Robber Round-up in Kiddy City!’ as, for a change, Sue sniffs out a theme-park mystery for Ralph to solve. Infantino finally bowed out with the superb ‘Enigma of the Elongated Evildoer!’ (written by Fox and inked by Greene) as the Debonair Detectives thwart a thief in a ski lodge who seems to possess all Ralph’s elastic abilities. The Atom guest-starred in #368, helping battle clock-criminal Chronos in ‘The Treacherous Time-Trap!’ by Fox, Gil Kane & Greene, before iconoclastic newcomer Neal Adams illustrates poignant puzzler ‘Legend of the Lover’s Lantern!’ and Kane & Greene return for intriguing all-action ‘Case of the Colorless Cash!’. The close of the year signalled the end of an era as Fox, Mike Sekowsky & Greene concluded Elongated Man’s expansive solo stretch with delightfully dizzy lost-loot yarn ‘The Bellringer and the Baffling Bongs’ (#371, January 1968).

With the next issue Detective Comics became an all Bat-family affair. Ralph & Sue Dibny temporarily faded from view until revived as bit players in Flash and were finally recruited into the Justice League of America as semi-regulars. Their charismatic relationship and unique, genteel style have, sadly, not survived: casualties of changing comics tastes and the replacement of sophistication with angsty shouting and testosterone-fuelled sturm und drang.

Witty, bright, clever and genuinely enthralling, these smart stories from a lost age are all beautiful to look at and a joy to read for any sharp kid and all joy-starved adults. This adorable collection is a shining tribute to the very best of DC’s Silver Age and a volume no fan of fun and adventure of any age should be without. It should not, however, be the only place you can stretch out and enjoy such classic fare.
© 1960, 1961, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Mighty Marvel Masterworks presents Mighty Thor volume 4: When Meet the Immortals


By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, with Vince Colletta, Art Simek, Sam Rosen & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5426-0 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

These stories are timeless and have been gathered many times before, but today I’m once again focussing on format. The Mighty Marvel Masterworks line launched with economy in mind: classic tales of Marvel’s key creators and characters re-presented in chronological publishing order. It’s been a staple since the 1990s, but always in lavish, hardback collectors editions. These editions are cheaper, on lower quality paper and – crucially – smaller, about the dimensions of a paperback book. Your eyesight might be failing and your hands too big and shaky, but at 152 x 227mm, they’re perfect for kids. If you opt for digital editions, that’s no issue at all…

Even more than The Fantastic Four, Sci Fi fantasy title The Mighty Thor was the arena in which Jack Kirby’s boundless fascination with all things Cosmic was honed and refined through his increasingly groundbreaking graphics and captivating concepts. The King’s plethora of power-packed signature pantheons began in a modest little monster mag called Journey into Mystery where – in the summer of 1962 – a tried-&-true comic book concept (feeble mortal transformed into god-like hero) was revived by the rapidly resurgent company who were not yet Marvel Comics: adding a Superman analogue to their growing roster of costumed adventurers.

This cheap & cheerful epochal pocket tome re-presents more pioneering Asgardian exploits from Journey into Mystery Annual #1, JiM #120-125, and The Mighty Thor #126-127: altogether spanning cover-dates September 1965 to April 1966 as the venerable anthology title changed name to further magnify its magnificent wide-screen feature hero, in a blazing blur of innovation and seat-of-the-pants myth-revising and universe-building. It is lettered throughout by unsung superstars Art Simek & Sam Rosen, and an unjustly anonymous band of colourists.

As you already know: Once upon a time, lonely, lamed American doctor Donald Blake took a vacation in Norway and encountered the vanguard of an alien invasion. Trapped in a cave, Blake found a gnarled old walking stick, which when struck against the ground, turned him into the Norse God of Thunder! Within moments he was defending the weak and smiting the wicked. As months swiftly passed, rapacious extraterrestrials, Commie tyrants, costumed crazies and cheap thugs gradually gave way to a vast panoply of fantastic worlds and incredible, mythic menaces. Moreover, from JiM #110, the wild warrior’s Realm of Asgard was a regular feature and mesmerising milieu for our hero’s earlier exploits, heralding an era of cosmic fantasy to run beside young Marvel’s signature superhero sagas.

Every issue carried spectacular back-up sagas Tales of Asgard – Home of the Mighty Norse Gods gifting Kirby space to indulge his fascination with legends. They also allowed both complete vignettes and longer epics – in every sense of the word. Initially adapted myths, these yarns evolved into serial sagas unique to the Marvel universe where Kirby constructed his own cosmos and mythology, underpinning the company’s entire continuity.

Here – with everything attributed to Lee, Kirby & Vince Colletta and after Thor has defeated his malign step-brother Loki and The Destroyer in Vietnam – the Thunder God returns to America, leaving room for a special event and flashback tale too big for the regular periodical.

The blockbusting lead story from Journey into Mystery Annual #1 reveals how in undisclosed ages past the God of Thunder fell across dimensions into the realm of the Greek Gods for a landmark heroic hullabaloo ‘When Titans Clash! Thor vs. Hercules!’ The spectacular clash of theologies was an incredible all-action episode, and is augmented by a stunning double-page pin-up of downtown Asgard – a true example of Kirby magic…

Back in the now, Thor stops at Pittsburgh’s steel mills to repair Mjolnir – cut into pieces by the Destroyer – and ‘With My Hammer in Hand..!’ prepares to denounce Loki’s villainy to Odin. In the process he mislays one of his brother’s magical Norn Stones: a mishap that will cost him dearly later. Meanwhile, beloved Jane Foster has been abducted by a hidden miscreant with mischief in mind but before the Thunderer can act on that he is ambushed by Loki’s contingency plan as the awesome Absorbing Man returns…

In the back, the Tales of Asgard serial ‘The Quest’ further unfolded as hand-picked warriors on Thor’s flying longship endure further hardship in their bold bid to forestall Ragnarok. This month’s Asgardian edda sees their bold but misguided attempt finally start, as they ‘Set Sail!’ against their legendary prophesied foes…

JiM #121 opens mid-melee as the Thunderer’s attack against colossal Crusher Creel intensifies in ‘The Power! The Passion! The Pride!’ before the god’s compassion for human spectators sparks his downfall and defeat. Seemingly doomed Thor’s cliffhanger fate is paused as B-feature ‘Maelstrom!’ sees Asgardian Argonauts epically encounter an uncanny living storm…

In #122’s ‘Where Mortals Fear to Tread!’ triumphant Crusher Creel is prevented from finishing Thor when he is abducted by Loki to attack Asgard and Odin himself: an astounding clash capped by cataclysmic conclusion ‘While a Universe Trembles!’ Meanwhile at the rear, ‘The Grim Specter of Mutiny!’ invoked by seditious young Loki is quashed in time for valiant Balder to save the Argonauts from ‘The Jaws of the Dragon!’ in the ever-escalating Ragnarok Quest.

In modern times, with the latest threat to Asgard ended and Creel and Loki banished, Thor returns to Earth to defeat The Demon: a “witchdoctor” empowered by the magical Norn Stone left behind after the Thunder God’s Vietnamese venture. However, whilst the Storm Lord is away, Hercules is dispatched to Earth on a reconnaissance mission for Zeus. ‘The Grandeur and the Glory!’ opens another extended story-arc/action extravaganza, bouncing the Thunderer from bruising battle to brutal defeat to ascendant triumph…

As seen in Journey into Mystery Annual #1, long ago the God of Thunder inadvertently invaded the realm of the Greek Gods. Now with the Greek godling clearly popular with readers, Hercules properly enters the growing Mavel Universe. After the impending imbroglio with Thor, the Prince of Power would battle the Hulk and eventually join the Avengers but right now he’s still just another enemy for the Thunderer to face…

Issue #125 –‘When Meet the Immortals!’ – was the last Journey into Mystery for decades. With next month’s ‘Whom the Gods Would Destroy!’, the comic became The Mighty Thor and the drama amped up, culminating with ‘The Hammer and the Holocaust!’ In short order Thor crushes the Norn-fuelled Demon, tells Jane his secret identity and is deprived of his powers by Odin. He is then brutally beaten by Hercules, and subsequently seemingly loses Jane to the Prince of Power, yet still manages to save Asgard from unscrupulous traitor Seidring the Merciless who had usurped Odin’s mystic might while the All-Father was distracted with family matters. And in the wings another epic encounter opened as a certain satanic terror set his infernal sights on an unwitting godly prince…

To Be Continued…

The accompanying Tales of Asgard instalments see the Questers home in on the cause of all their woes. ‘Closer Comes the Swarm’ pits them against the Flying Trolls of Thryheim, before ‘The Queen Commands’ sees Loki captured until Thor answers ‘The Summons!’, promptly returning all Argonauts to Asgard to be shown ‘The Meaning of Ragnarok!’

In truth, these mini-eddas were, although still magnificent in visual excitement, becoming rather rambling in plot, so the narrative reset was neither unexpected nor unwelcome…

The episodic exploits then close with the original pencil art to the cover of JiM #123.

These Thor tales show the development not only of one of Marvel’s fundamental continuity concepts but more importantly the creative evolution of the greatest imagination in comics. Set your common sense on pause and simply wallow in the glorious imagery and power of these classic adventures for the true secret of what makes graphic narrative a unique experience.
© 2024 MARVEL.

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Explainers


By Jules Feiffer (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-835-0 (HB)

This book includes some Discriminatory Content included for comedic and dramatic effect.

In January this year we lost one of the few remaining titans of our industry and art form. Bronx-born Jules Ralph Feiffer (January 26th 1929 – January 17th 2025) was always far more than “just a comic-book guy”, even though his credits in the field are astonishingly impressive. Feiffer wrote upwards of 35 books, plays, and screenplays and was frequently cited as the most widely read satirist in America. His creative credits extend far beyond the world of print. Feiffer was one of the playwrights on stage revue Oh! Calcutta! (collaborating with Kenneth Tynan, Edna O’Brien, Sam Shepard, Leonard Melfi, Samuel Beckett & John Lennon) and has created 35 plays, books and screenplays including Carnal Knowledge and Little Murders. In 1961 his animated trenchant antiwar short feature Munro won an Academy Award.

In our isolated, outlier field, Feiffer began his career working for and with Will Eisner on The Spirit and other comics features, before creating his own Sunday strip Clifford (1949-51). He eventually settled at The Village Voice, art directing and crafting a variety of comics for kids and adults. These include Sick, Sick, Sick, Passionella and Other Stories (1959), Feiffer on Nixon, the Cartoon Presidency (1974), Knock Knock (1976), Tantrum (1979), I Lost My Bear (1998), Kill My Mother (2014) and Amazing Grapes (2024).

He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1995, and his many awards include a Pulitzer and Oscar, an Obie, Inkpot, National Cartoonists Society’s Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award, and Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Writers Guild and Dramatists Guild of America. In 2004 he was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame and was later recognized by The Library of Congress for his “remarkable legacy as a cartoonist, playwright, screenwriter, adult and children’s book author, illustrator, and art instructor”. In 2006 was awarded the Creativity Foundation’s Laureate.

Novelist (Harry: The Rat with Women, a Novel in 1963 and 1977’s Ackroyd), animator, educator, academic, film maker, playwright (why isn’t there a single-word term for those guys?), he officially turned his back on cartooning in 2000, but the 42-year run of his satirical comic strip in The Village Voice ranks as some of the most telling, trenchant, plaintive and socio-politically perspicacious narrative art in the history of the medium.

In 1965 Feiffer kickstarted academic American comic fandom with his celebratory evaluation of the industry’s formative Golden Age The Great Comic Book Heroes, and in 1979 was at the forefront of the creation of graphic novels with Tantrum before scripting Robert Altman’s much-undervalued Popeye movie (released a year later).

After years as a cartoonist, illustrator, pundit and educator, at the age of 85 (having been born in the Bronx on 26th January 1929) he returned to his primary role of storyteller with another gripping and innovative graphic novel – for which read on after the review below…

Originally entitled Sick, Sick, Sick, and latterly Feiffer’s Fables, before simply settling on Feiffer – Feiffer’s Village voice strip was quickly picked up by the Hall Syndicate and developed a devoted worldwide following. Over decades the strip generated many strip collections – the first book was in 1958 – since its low key premiere. The auteur’s incisive examination of American society and culture, as reflected by and expressed through politics, art, Television, Cinema, work, philosophy, advertising and most especially in the way men and women interacted, informed and shaped opinions and challenged accepted thought for generations. They were mostly bloody funny and wistfully sad too – and remain so today.

Fantagraphics Books began collecting the entire run in 2007 – and we’re all waiting patiently for the run to continue and conclude. However Explainers is a magnificent first volume of 568 pages, covering the period from its start in October 1956 up to the end of 1966. As such, it covers a pivotal period of social, racial and sexual transformation in America and the world beyond its borders and much of that is – tragically- still painfully germane to today’s readers.

Explainers is a “dipping book”: not something to storm your way through, but a faithful relaxation resource to return to over and again. Feiffer’s thoughts and language, his pictorial observations and questions on “the eternal verities” are potently, dauntingly relevant even now. As I’ve already mentioned, it is utterly terrifying how many problems of the 1950s and 1960s still vex and dog us today – and the “Battle of the Sexes” that my generation honestly believed to be almost over still breaks out somewhere every minute. Of course, now we have the internet to advise and enrage us further…

Most crucially and compellingly, Feiffer’s expressive drawing is a masterclass in style and economy all by itself.

If you occasionally resort to Thinking and sometimes wonder about Stuff, this book should be your guide and constant companion – and it will make you laugh.
© 2007 Jules Feiffer. All Rights Reserved.

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Kill My Mother


By Jules Feiffer (Liveright/W.W. Norton)
ISBN: 978-0-87140-314-8 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes some Discriminatory Content included for comedic and dramatic effect.

After years as cartoonist, illustrator, pundit and educator, at age 85 Jules Feiffer returned to his primary role of comics storyteller with an intense, sublimely gripping and innovative graphic novel. Spanning 10 turbulent years, Kill My Mother is a supremely classy, passionately heartfelt tribute to Film Noir, Hollywood Babylon, sexual politics and family secrets, blending trappings of Dashiell Hammett with the tone, pacing and spark of Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder to tell an extended story of love, murder, jealousy and revenge.

It all begins in ‘Bay City Blues’. It’s 1933 and times are tough all over. At 15-years old, Annie Hannigan is cutting up, constantly leading poor, gullible sap Artie Folsom into trouble, whilst the mother she despises works all hours for dissolute, dipsomaniac, exceedingly cheap private investigator Neil Hammond. The odd arrangement developed after the shamus agreed to investigate the murder of Elsie Hannigan’s husband, whom he constantly refers to as the wrong sort of honest cop. Events take a dark turn when stylish, exceedingly tall maneater Mae Longo walks in, offering outrageous sums if the gumshoe can track down a certain someone. The photo she gives Hammond shows a woman remarkably similar to his coolly aloof new client…

Eddie “the Dancing Master” Longo is a rising star of the fight game who usually employs shady but capable gorilla Tiny Tim Gaffney to handle the more unsavoury problems in his life but Neil claims to know just how to handle him. In the course of her mean-spirited, casual rebellions, Annie gets poor Artie into real trouble when a shoplifting binge results in pursuit by a store detective far faster than he looks. A very nasty beating is only avoided when an exceptionally tall derelict in an alley lays out the private cop with her carefully concealed baseball bat. The rattled teen takes the tramp back to the dump of an apartment and cleans her up, even as Elsie – very much against her will and better judgement – is dragged by soused-as-ever Neil to the Big Fight to see the Dancing Master.

The escapade almost costs her everything…

Her drunken boss’ plan to draw his tall target out of the woodwork also involves poor Elsie and leads to a lot of pain, trouble and strife, whilst Hammond, clearly a dipsomaniac with a death wish, starts dogging mysterious client Mae instead of doing the job he was hired for.

The result is a murder unsolved and unexplained for a decade…

The concluding half of the story resumes in 1943 with ‘Hooray for Hollywood’ as we return to our cast and find them all greatly advanced. Goonish Artie is a Captain of Marines, successfully battling the Japanese in the Green Hell of the Pacific whilst Annie Hannigan is a writer and media darling. Her sensational hit comedy “Shut Up, Artie” is the most popular radio show in America and is broadcast wherever Yanks are posted. Eddie Longo made the transition to B-Movie star and Ellen, when not babysitting obstreperous grandson Sammy, is Executive Vice President of Pinnacle Studios in charge of Image Security and Maintenance. The scary indigent little Annie met in an alley has also cleaned up and moved on. Now she sings torch songs in the Reno Roost as the enigmatic Lady Veil…

Eddy hates his life. The former hard-man boxer is trapped as a song-&-dance hoofer in big, morale-boosting musicals but dreams of major stardom like glamorous He-Man Hugh Patton or even an Academy Award… but is typecast and more under the thumb of the formidable Mae than ever.

The fraught status quo changes after Annie meets the dashing Patton at the Hollywood Canteen, but her romantic elation is crushed soon after, when the sponsors call her in to discuss a crisis. A genuine war hero is suing the show, claiming his life is being made a mockery. Unless she can fix things up with her old pal Artie, the show and her career are over…

Eddie is also near breaking point and Mae calls in thuggish Gaffney as a minder. Events begin to spiral to a shocking conclusion when Longo joins a USO tour to the war-torn Pacific Islands. Patton is going too, and Annie takes the opportunity to join him, as does her mother in the role of “image maintainer”…

The first port of call is Tarawa; the hellhole where Captain Arthur Folsom is almost single-handedly repulsing the Jap advance. On the island, Artie is overseeing the building of a stage for the visiting stars whilst marvelling at the stupidity of putting on a show in a battleground still hotly contested by enemy forces. In the air above him, Ellen has a sharp confrontation with Mae Longo and “bodyguard” Gaffney. The events of ten years ago are still painfully fresh in every participant’s mind. By the time all the players debark on the island, a devious and supposedly foolproof plan to commit another perfect murder has been hatched, using the Japanese as ideal scapegoats. However, an intimate killing is far harder than mass slaughter and the scheme soon starts to unravel…

Complex, beguiling, smartly sophisticated, devastatingly witty and peppered with shockingly casual violence (as every noir thriller must be) this spectacular yarn is packed with twists and surprises, where nobody tells the truth and no one is playing on the side of the angels.

A masterpiece of cool suspense, mature ingenuity and graphic dexterity, Kill My Mother was winner of the Eisner Prize for Best New Graphic Album, took the National Cartoonist Society Reuben Award for Best Graphic Novel 2014 and was named one of the Best Books of the Year by Vanity Fair, Kirkus Reviews and Library Journal. It remains a timeless, hearty slice of bravura storytelling that gets better with every re-reading and a fitting tribute to the talents of one of graphic narrative storytelling’s greatest masters. If you love crime yarns, comic tales, nostalgia and having your intelligence respected, this is the book for you.
© 2014 Liveright Publishing Corporation.

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Golden Age Flash Archives volume I


By Gardner F. Fox, Harry Lampert, E.E. Hibbard, Hal Sharp & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0784-7 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

There are many comics anniversaries this year. Some of the most significant will be rightly celebrated, but a few are going to be unjustly ignored. As a feverish fanboy wedged firmly in the past, I’m still abusing my privileges here by carping about another brilliant vintage book, criminally out of print and not slated for revival either physically or in digital formats…

The innovative fledgling company that became DC published the first ever comic book super-speedster and over the intervening decades has constantly added more to its pantheon of stars. Devised, created and written by Gardner Fox and initially visually realised by Harry Lampert, Jay Garrick debuted as the very first Monarch of Motion in Flash Comics #1. He quickly – how else? – became a veritable sensation. “The Fastest Man Alive” wowed readers of anthologies like Flash Comics, All Star Comics, Comics Cavalcade and other titles – as well as solo vehicle All-Flash Quarterly – for just over a decade before changing tastes benched him and most other first-generation costumed crimebusters in the early1950s.

His invention as a strictly single-power superhero created a new trend in the burgeoning action-adventure Funnybook marketplace, and his particular riff was specifically replicated many times at various companies where myriad Fast Furies sprang up including Johnny Quick, Hurricane/Mercury, Silver Streak, The Whizzer, Quicksilver and Snurtle McTurtle – the Terrific Whatzit amongst so many others…

After half a decade of mostly interchangeable cops, cowboys and cosmic invaders, the concept of human speedsters and the superhero genre in general was spectacularly revived by Julie Schwartz in 1956. Showcase #4 revealed how police scientist Barry Allen became the second hero to run with the concept. We’ve not looked back since – and if we did it would all be a great big blur…

This initial charmingly beguiling deluxe Archive (sadly not available in not-quite-faster-than-light digital) edition collects the first year and a half of publication, spanning January 1940 to May 1941 of the irrepressible Garrick’s whimsically eccentric exploits in 17 (regrettably untitled) adventures from anthology Flash Comics. These tales demonstrate an appealing rawness, light-hearted whimsy and scads of narrative experimentation starring a brilliant nerd and (ostensibly) physical sad-sack who became a social reformer and justice-dispensing human meteor.

Following a fulsome Foreword from sometime Flash scribe Mark Waid, the fast fictions commence with the debut of ‘The Fastest Man Alive’, speedily delivering in 15 pages an origin and returning cast, whilst staging a classic confrontation with a sinister cabal of gangsters. It all started years previously when student Garrick collapsed in a Midwestern University lab, only to awaken hyper-charged and the fastest creature on Earth thanks to “hard water fumes” he had inhaled whilst unconscious. After weeks recovering in hospital, the formerly-frail chemist realised the exposure had bestowed super-speed and endurance. He promptly sought to impress his sort-of girlfriend Joan Williams by becoming an unstoppable football player…

Time passed, the kids graduated and Garrick moved to New York where, appalled by rampant crime, he decided to do something about it. The Flash operates mostly in secret until one day, whilst idly playing tennis with himself, Jay meets Joan again, just as mobsters try to kill her in a drive-by shooting. Catching a storm of bullets, Jay gets reacquainted with his former paramour and discovers she is being targeted by criminal combine the Faultless Four: master criminals set on obtaining her father’s invention the Atomic Bombarder. In the blink of an eye Flash smashes the gang’s sinister schemes and defeats diabolical leader Sieur Satan, saving Joan’s life whilst revelling in the sheer liberating fun and freedom of being gloriously unstoppable…

In his sequel appearance Flash stumbles upon a showgirl’s murder and discovers that Yankee mobster Boss Goll and British aristocrat Lord Donelin plan to take over America’s entire entertainment industry with ruthless strong-arm tactics. The speedster is as much hindered as helped by “wilful, headstrong” (that’s old world coding for forceful, competent and independently-minded) Joan who begins her own lifetime obsession of pesky do-gooding right there, right then…

Everett E. Hibbard began a decade-long association with Flash in #3, when Major Williams’ Atomic Bombarder is coveted by foreign spies. The elderly boffin being framed for treason prompts Garrick to come to his future father-in-law’s aid, after which Jay & Joan smash an off-shore gambling ring graduating to kidnapping and blackmail in #4. During these early escapades, Flash seldom donned his red, blue and yellow outfit: usually operating invisibly or undercover to play super-speed pranks with merciless, puckish glee. That started changing in #5, when the speedster saves an elderly artist from hit-men to frustrate mad collector Vandal who uses murder to increase the market value of his purchases.

Flash Comics #6 saw Jay & Joan at old Alma Mater Midwestern, foiling a scheme to dope athletes seeking to qualify for the Olympics, before #7 saw a stopover in Duluth lead to the downfall of gambler Black Mike – industriously fixing motorcar races with a metal melting ray. For #8, the Vizier of Velocity tracks down seemingly corrupt contractors building shoddy, dangerous buildings only to find graft and skulduggery go much further up the financial and civic food chain, whilst in FC #9, gangsters “acquire” a scientist’s invention and the Flash finds himself battling a brigade of giant Gila Monsters. Flash #10 depicts the downfall of a political cabal in the pocket of gangster Killer Kelly and stealing from the schools they administered, before in #11, Garrick meets his first serious opponent in kidnap racketeer The Chief, whose sinister brilliance enables him to devise stroboscopic glasses to track and target the usually invisibly fast crime-crusher…

With the threat of involvement in the “European War” a constant subject of US headlines, Flash Comics #12 (December 1940) had the heroic human hurricane intervene to save tiny Ruritanian nation Kurtavia from ruthless invasion. His spectacular lightning war sees Garrick sinking submarines, repelling land armies and crushing airborne blitzkriegs for a fairy tale happy ending here, but within a year the process would become patriotic morale boosting repeated ad infinitum in every US comic book as the real world brutally intruded on the industry and nation.

Back in the USA for #13, Garrick assists old pal Jim Carter in cowboy country where the young inheritor of a silver mine is gunned down by murdering owlhoots. Jay then heads back east to crush a criminal combine sabotaging city subway construction in #14, before saving a circus from robbery, sabotage and poor attendances in #15. Throughout all these yarns Jay paid scant attention to preserving any kind of secret identity – a detail that would soon change – but as Hal Sharp took over illustrating with #16 (Hibbard presumably devoting his energies to the contents of forthcoming 64-page solo-starring All-Flash Quarterly #1: another landmark for the hero) Joan is kidnapped by Mexican mobsters aware of her connection to The Flash. Rushing to her rescue, Garrick battles a small army, not only saving his girlfriend but even reforming bandit chief José Salvez. This high-energy compilation closes with another light-hearted sporting escapade as the speedster intervenes in a gambling plot, saving a moribund baseball team from sabotage even as Jay Garrick – officially “almost as fast as the Flash” – becomes the Redskins’ (a nickname now thankfully consigned to history’s massive dustbin of insensitivity) star player to save them from lousy performances…

With covers by Sheldon Moldoff, Dennis Neville, George Storm, Jon L. Blummer, Hibbard and Sharp, this book is a sheer delight for lovers of the early Fights ‘n’ Tights genre: exuberant, exciting and funny, although certainly not to every modern fan’s taste. Of course, with such straightforward thrills on show any reader with an open mind could find his opinion changed in a flash.
© 1940, 1941, 1999 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Golden Age Flash Archives volume II


By Gardner F. Fox, E.E. Hibbard, Hal Sharp & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0784-7 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

The ever-expanding array of companies that became DC published many iconic “Firsts” in the early years of the industry. Associated outfit All-American Publications (co-publishers until bought out by National/DC in 1946) were responsible for the first comic book super-speedster as well as the iconic Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, The Atom, Hawkman, Johnny Thunder and so many others who became mainstays of DC’s pantheon of stars.

Devised, created and written by Gardner Fox and originally limned by Harry Lampert, Flash Comics #1 saw Jay Garrick debut as the very first Vizier of Velocity and quickly become a veritable sensation. “The Fastest Man Alive” wowed readers for just over a decade before changing tastes ended the first costumed hero as the 1950s opened.

This charmingly seductive deluxe Archive edition collects the Fastest Yarns Alive from Flash Comics #18-24, covering June-December 1941, plus the first two issues of the irrepressible Garrick’s whimsically eccentric full-length exploits from All-Flash Quarterly (Summer and Fall of that same fateful year). All were written by an apparently inexhaustible Gardner Fox.

After another informative Introduction from comic book all-star Jim Amash, the rollercoaster of fun and thrills gathers steam with ‘The Restaurant Protective Association’ (illustrated by Hal Sharp), with Jay and girlfriend/confidante Joan Williams stumbling upon a pack of extortionists and exposing a treacherous viper preying on Joan’s best gal-pal, after which ‘The Fall Guy’ in #19 reveals how a gang of agile fraudsters are faking motor accidents to fleece insurance companies. Both cases gave Garrick ample opportunity to display his hilarious and humiliating bag of super-speed tricks and punishing pranks to astound playful kids of the day and which still delight decades later.

Flash Comics #20 led with ‘The Adventure of the Auctioned Utility Company’ wherein Joan accidentally buys a regional power outfit and Jay uses all his energies to reconcile a feuding family whilst teaching a miserly embezzler an unforgettable lesson…

Sharp had been doing such splendid artistic service on the monthly tales because regular illustrator E. E. Hibbard had been devoting all his creative energies to the contents of a forthcoming solo title: 64-page All-Flash Quarterly #1. The epic premiere issue opened with tantalising frontispiece ‘The JSA Bid Farewell to the Flash’, celebrating the fact that the Fastest Man Alive was the third character to win his own solo comic – after Superman and Batman – and would therefore be “too busy for Justice Society get-togethers”…

Fox & Hibbard then retold ‘The Origin of the Flash’, revealing again how some years previously college student Garrick had passed out in a lab at Midwestern University, only to awaken hyper-charged and the fastest creature on Earth thanks to “hard water fumes” he inhaled whilst unconscious. After weeks in hospital, the formerly-frail apprentice chemist deduced he had developed super-speed and endurance, and promptly sought to impress his apparently unattainable sort-of girlfriend Joan Williams by becoming an unbeatable football star. Upon graduation Garrick moved to New York where, appalled by its rampant criminality, he employed his gift to fight it…

‘The Men Who Turned to Stone’ plunged readers back to the present as one of Garrick’s colleagues at Chemical Research Incorporated discovers an instant petrification process and is abducted by criminals hoping to make lots of illegal money with it. Hibbard also illustrated uncredited fun-fact featurette ‘The Flash Presents his Hall of Speed Records’ before ‘Meet the Author and Artist of the Flash’ offers an intimate introduction to the creative team, before ‘The Adventure of the Monocle and his Garden of Gems’ sees the debut of a rare returning villain with an unwise addiction to other people’s jewels, but enough brains to counter Flash’s speed, if not Jay’s courage and ingenuity.

When Flash prevents the murder of a cowboy performer in New York, ‘The Rodeo Mystery’ soon takes Jay & Joan to Oklahoma and a crooked ploy to steal a newly discovered oil well, after which the issue closes with Flash smashing a gambler trying to take over the sport of Ice Hockey in ‘Menace of the Racket King’.

Gambling was also a problem in monthly Flash Comics #21 as ‘The Lottery’ (illustrated by Sharp) sees the Speedster expose a cunning criminal scheme to bilk theatre patrons and carnival-goers. Issue #22’s ‘The Hatchet Cult’ offers a rare exceedingly dark walk on the wild side as the speedster gets involved in a Chinatown Tong war and exposes the incredible secret of modern Mongol mastermind Mighty Kong…

Hibbard & Sharp collaborated on issue #23’s ‘A Millionaire’s Revenge’ wherein wealthy plutocrat Leffingwell Funk decides to avenge an imagined slight inadvertently delivered by a poor but happy man. The methodology is unique: beginning with engineering unsuspecting shoe store owner Jim Sewell’s inheritance of half a million dollars. It would have ended with leg-breaking thugs, disgrace and prison had not Jim counted Jay Garrick amongst his circle of friends…

Cover-dated Fall 1941, All-Flash Quarterly #2 (another all Fox/Hibbard co-production) kicks off with a spectacular all-action ‘Title Page’ and informative recap in ‘A Short History of the Flash’ before the creators ambitiously undertake a massive 4-chapter saga of vengeance and justice. In an era where story was paramount, this oddly time-skewed tale might jar slightly with modern continuity-freaks, spanning as it does nearly a lifetime in the telling, but trust me, just go with it…

‘The Threat: Part One – The Adventure of Roy Revenge!’ opens as brilliant young criminal Joe Connor is sentenced to ten years in jail and swears vengeance on DA Jim Kelley. The convict means it too, spending every waking moment inside improving himself educationally, becoming a trustee to foster the illusion of rehabilitation. On his release Connor befriends Kelley – who is currently pursuing a political career – and orchestrates the abduction of the lawyer’s newborn son. Years later a bold young thug dubbed Roy Revenge begins a campaign of terror against Mayor Jim Kelley which even Flash is hard-pressed to stop. When the bandit is at last apprehended, Kelley pushes hard to have the boy jailed, unaware of his biological connection to the savage youth. In the intervening years Connor had truly reformed – until his angelic wife died, leaving him to care for their little girl Ann and “adopted” son Roy. Without his wife’s influence, Connor again turns to crime and raises the stolen boy to hate his biological father…

‘The Flash Presents his Hall of Speed Records’ and ‘How to Develop Your Speed by the Flash’ break up the rolling melodrama before the saga continues in ‘The Threat: Part Two – Adventure of the Blood-Red Ray’ wherein Connor rises through ranks of the Underworld. He now plans to take over the country. Ann has grown up a decent and upstanding – if oblivious – citizen whose only weakness is her constant concealment of her bad brother Roy, who has been hiding from the law for years…

Even when the elder master criminal’s plan to destroy the Kelleys with a heat-ray is scotched by the Flash, the canny crook convinces the Speedster that he is merely a henchman and escapes the full force of justice…

‘The Threat: Part Three – The Wrecker Racket’ sees a new gang plaguing the city, led by a monstrous disfigured albino. No one realises this is Connor – who escaped custody by a method which physically ruined his body and only increased his hatred of Kelley. Locating Roy – who has since found peace in rural isolation – the malign menace again draws the young man into his maniacal schemes. When the boy nearly kills his “sister” Ann in pursuance of Connor’s ambitions, only the Flash can save the day, leading to a swathe of revelation and a shocking conclusion in ‘The Threat: Part Four – The End of the Threat’…

After that monumental generational saga this splendid selection closes with a full-on alien extravaganza from Flash Comics #24 as Garrick investigates a series of abductions and foils a madman’s plot to forcibly colonise the Red Planet. Unfortunately, when inventor Jennings and his gangster backer reach their destination with Jay a helpless prisoner, nobody expected the arid world to be already occupied by belligerent insectoids. Fox, Hibbard & Sharp’s ‘The Flash and the Spider-Man of Mars’ ends the book on a gloriously madcap, spectacular fantasy high note.

Amazing, exciting and quirkily captivating – even if not to many modern fans’ taste, the sheer exuberance, whimsical tone and constant narrative invention in these tales of a nerd who became a social crusader and justice-dispensing human meteor are addictively appealing, and with covers by Sharp, Sheldon Moldoff & Hibbard, this book is another utter delight for lovers of early Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy. Of course, with such straightforward thrills on show any reader with an open mind could find his opinion changed in a flash.
© 1941, 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Mighty Marvel Masterworks presents Spider-Man volume 5: To Become an Avenger


By Stan Lee & John Romita, with Don Heck, Mike Esposito, Art Simek, Sam Rosen & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5434-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

These stories are timeless and have been gathered many times before but here we’re enjoying another example of The Mighty Marvel Masterworks line: designed with economy in mind and newcomers as target audience. These books are far cheaper, on lower quality paper and smaller – like a paperback novel. Your eyesight might be failing and your hands too big and shaky, but at 152 x 227mm, they’re perfect for kids. If you opt for digital editions, that’s no issue at all.

As well as finally introducing the romantic option who would drive much of hero’s later life, this compelling compilation categorically confirms the superstar status of the wallcrawler. Originally seen in The Amazing Spider-Man #39-46 and Amazing Spider-Man Annual #3, spanning cover-dates August 1966 to December 1968, these stories herald the start of a brand new era for the Astonishing Arachnid, with Peter and an ever-expanding cast of cohorts well on their way to being household names… as well as the darlings of college campuses and the media intelligentsia.

Outcast, geeky high school kid Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider and, after attempting to cash in on the astonishing abilities he’d developed, suffered an irreconcilable personal tragedy. Due to the teenager’s arrogant neglect, his beloved guardian Uncle Ben was murdered and the traumatised boy determined henceforward to always use his powers to help those in dire need. For years the brilliant young hero suffered privation and travail in his domestic situation, whilst his heroic alter ego endured public condemnation and mistrust as he valiantly battled all manner of threat and foe…

Although co-authors of the wonderment, by 1966 Stan Lee & Steve Ditko could no longer work together on their greatest creation. After increasingly fraught months the artist simply resigned, leaving Spider-Man without an illustrator. In the coincidental meantime John Romita had been lured away from DC’s romance line and given odd assignments before assuming the artistic reins of Daredevil, the Man Without Fear. Before long, Romita was co-piloting the company’s biggest property and expected to run with it.

After a period where traditional – albeit fantasy-tinged – crime and gangsterism predominated, science fiction themes and costumed crazies increasingly began to predominate. As the world went gaga for superheroes, the creators experimented with longer storylines and protracted subplots. When Ditko abruptly left, the company feared a drastic loss in quality – and sales – but it didn’t happen. For the first time since the Marvel miracle began, Lee was largely left to his own narrative devices on a major feature, without the experimental visual inspiration or plotting acumen of twin comics geniuses Kirby and Ditko. What occurred heralded a new kind of superhero storytelling…

John Romita (senior) considered himself a mere “safe pair of hands” keeping the momentum going until a better artist could be found, but instead blossomed into a major talent in his own right as the wallcrawler continued his unstoppable rise at an accelerated pace. With the scene set the new era dawns when Amazing Spider-Man #39 appeared, first of a 2-part adventure declaiming the ultimate victory of the hero’s greatest foe.

Ditko was gone and no reader knew what had happened – and no one told them. ‘How Green Was My Goblin!’ and concluding episode ‘Spidey Saves the Day! Featuring: the End of the Green Goblin!’ calamitously changed everything: describing how the archfoes learn each other’s true identities before the Goblin “perishes” in a climactic flame-fuelled showdown. It would have been memorable even if the saga didn’t feature the debut of a new artist and a whole new manner of storytelling. These issues were a turning point in many ways, and – inked by old DC colleague Mike Esposito (under the pseudonym Mickey DeMeo) – they still stand as one of the greatest Spider-Man yarns of all time.

They were also precursors to a run of classic tales from the Lee/Romita team that saw sales rise and rise. In ASM #41 and on ‘The Horns of the Rhino!’, Romita began inking his pencils. The debuting super-strong criminal spy proved a mere diversion, but his intended target J. Jonah Jameson’s astronaut son was a far harder proposition in the next issue. Amazing Spider-Man #42 heralded ‘The Birth of a Super-Hero!’, with John Jameson mutated by space-spores and going on a Manhattan rampage: a solid, entertaining yarn that is only really remembered for the last panel of the final page.

Mary Jane Watson had been a running gag in the series for years: a prospective blind-date arranged by Aunt May whom Peter had avoided – and Ditko teasingly not depicted – for the duration of time our hero had been romantically involved with Betty Brant, Liz Allen, and latterly, Gwen Stacy. Now, in that last frame the gobsmacked young man finally realises that for two years he’s been ducking the hottest date in New York!

Enthralling encore ‘Rhino on the Rampage!’ gave the leathery villain one more crack at Jameson and Spidey, but the emphasis was solidly on foreshadowing future foes and building Pete and MJ’s relationship, as seen in Amazing Spider-Man Annual # 3 and ‘…To Become an Avenger!’ Here the World’s Mightiest Heroes offer the webspinner membership… but only if he can capture The Hulk. As usual, all is not as it seems, but the action-drenched epic, courtesy of Lee, Romita (layouts), pencilled by Don Heck and inked by Esposito is the kind of guest-heavy, power-punching package that made the summer specials a child’s delight.

The monthly Marvel merriment marched on with the return of a tragedy-drenched former foe when Lee & Romita reintroduced biologist Curt Conners in ASM #44’s ‘Where Crawls the Lizard!’ The deadly B-movie inspired reptilian marauder again threatens Humanity itself and requires all of the wallcrawler’s resourcefulness and resolve to stop the savage saurian in all-action conclusion ‘Spidey Smashes Out!’

Closing this outing, ASM #46 introduced an all-new, second tier menace in the blue collar form of ambitious, seismic super-thief ‘The Sinister Shocker!’ who just wants to rob some banks and crack a few safes, but comes closer than many macabre masterminds in ending the antics of the wary webspinner. Moreover, as sinister stalker Patch (no relation to the later Wolverine alter ego) trails Peter Parker in the opening moves of a major subplot beginning to unfold, the baffled college boy can only watch in bewilderment as his attention is pulled between classmate Gwen Watson and bizarrely attentive and attention-drawing Mary Jane.

It’s only the start of years of complex romantic interactions To Be Continued in succeeding collections…

Augmented by a brief gallery of Romita original art pages – including unused ones – this transitional tome is the just the beginning of an era when Spider-Man became a permanent and unmissable part of countless teenagers’ lives: doing so by living a life as close to theirs as social mores and the Comics Code would allow. Blending cultural authenticity with glorious narrative art, and making a dramatic virtue of awkwardness, confusion and a sense of powerlessness most of the readership experienced daily resulted in an irresistibly intoxicating read, delivered in addictive soap-opera slices, but none of that would be relevant if the stories weren’t so compellingly entertaining.

This book is Marvel and Spider-Man at their peak. Come and see why.
© 2024 MARVEL.

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Golden Age Hawkman Archives volume 1


By Gardner F. Fox, Dennis Neville, Sheldon Moldoff & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0418-1 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

There are many comics anniversaries this year. Some of the most significant will be rightly celebrated, but a few are going to be unjustly ignored. As a feverish fanboy wedged firmly in the past, I’m again abusing my privileges here to carp about another brilliant vintage book, criminally out of print and not slated for revival either physically or in digital formats…

Although one of DC’s most long-lived and certainly their most visually iconic character, the various iterations of Hawkman have always struggled to find enough of an audience to sustain a solo title. From his beginnings as one of the assorted second features in new anthology Flash Comics (the others being Cliff Cornwall, The King, The Whip, spoof hero Johnny Thunder and Ed Wheelan’s “Picture Novels/Minute Movies”), adding lustre to the soaraway success of the eponymous speedster helming the title, Winged Wonder Carter Hall has struggled through assorted engaging, exciting but always short-lived reconfigurations.

Over decades from ancient hero to re-imagined alien space-cop and post-Crisis on Infinite Earths freedom fighter, or the seemingly desperate but highly readable bundling together of all previous iterations into the reincarnating immortal berserker-warrior of today, the Pinioned Paladin has performed exemplary service without ever really making it to the big time. Hopefully that’s all changed now, thanks to modern movie trends…

Created by Gardner Fox & Dennis Neville, Hawkman first took to the skies in Flash Comics #1 (cover-dated January 1940, but actually on sale from November 20th 1939). He stayed there, growing in quality and prestige until the title died at the end of the Golden Age, with the most celebrated artists to have drawn the Feathered Fury being Sheldon Moldoff and Joe Kubert, whilst a young Robert Kanigher was justly proud of his later run as writer.

Together with his partner Hawkgirl/Hawkwoman, for over a decade the gladiatorial mystery-man countered fantastic arcane threats and battled modern crime and tyranny with weapons of the past before vanishing with the bulk of costumed heroes as the 1950s dawned. His last contemporary appearance was in All Star Comics #57 (1951) as official leader of the Justice Society of America, after which the husband-and-wife hellions were revived and re-imagined nine years later as Katar Hol and Shayera Thal of planet Thanagar. That was thanks to Julie Schwartz’s crack creative couple Gardner Fox & Joe Kubert – a space-age reinterpretation which even survived 1985’s winnowing Crisis on Infinite Earths. Their long career, regular revamps and perpetual retcons stalled during 1994’s Zero Hour crisis, but they’ve reincarnated and returned many times since. However, despite being amongst DC’s most celebrated and visually vibrant strips over the years, Hawkman & Hawkwoman always struggled to retain sufficient audience share to sustain their numerous solo endeavours.

This spectacular deluxe hardcover re-presentation of their formative years (collecting appearances from Flash Comics #1-22, spanning cover dates January 1940 to October 1941) opens with a fond reminiscence by artist Moldoff (Batman, Black Pirate, Sea Devils, Gang Busters, Mr. District Attorney, Moon Girl) in his Foreword before the magic begins as it should with Fox & Neville’s ‘The Origin of Hawkman’. In an first epochal episode, dashing Carter Hall is a playboy scientific tinkerer and part-time archaeologist with a penchant for collecting old, rare weapons, whose dormant memory is abruptly unlocked by an ancient crystal dagger newly purchased for his collection. Through dreams, the dilettante realises that once he had been Prince Khufu of ancient Egypt, murdered with his lover Shiera by Anubis’ High Priest Hath-Set. Moreover, with his newly returned memories, Hall realises the eternal struggle is primed to play out once more…

As if pre-destined, he bumps into equally reincarnated and recently-remembering Shiera Sanders just as a terrifying electrical menace turns New York City’s subway system into a lightning-fuelled killing field. The new couple soon deduce the deadly genius Doctor Hastor is their reborn ancient nemesis Hastor and, after fashioning an outlandish uniform and anti-gravity harness from mystic Egyptian “Ninth Metal”, Hall hunts the deranged electrical scientist to his lair. He’s just in time to save mesmerised Shiera from a second death-by-sacrifice: mercilessly ending the cycle – at least for now…

Flash #2’s ‘The Globe Conquerors’ concentrated on fantastic science as Hall & Saunders tackle a modern Alexander the Great who builds a gravity-altering engine in a ruthless quest to conquer the world, whilst ‘The Secret of Dick Blendon’ in #3 sees “The Hawk-Man” expose a wicked scheme by insidious slavers turning brilliant men into zombies for profit, to gather riches and to ferret out the secret of eternal life.

Sheldon Moldoff debuted as artist in Flash Comics #4, illustrating a splendidly barbarous thriller wherein the Winged Warrior clashes with ‘The Thought Terror’: a sinister mesmerist enslaving the city’s wealthy citizens, prior to ‘The Kidnapping of Ione Craig’ in #5 pitting the crimefighting phenomenon against “Asiatic” cultists led by legendary assassin Hassan Ibn Saddah. These killers are determined to stop a pretty missionary and secret agent from investigating distant “Araby”. Moldoff has received overly unfair criticism over the years for his frequent, copious but stylishly artistic swipes from newspaper strips – usually those of  master craftsmen Alex Raymond and Hal Foster – in his work of this period, but one look at the stunning results here as the feature took a quantum leap in visual quality should silence those quibblers for good.

Maintaining the use of exotic locales, the story extended in #6 as Hall and Ione struggle to cross burning Saharan sands to the African coast before defeating Arab slavers and their deadly ruler ‘Sheba, Queen of the Desert’ before in #7 further exploring the mystical and supernatural underpinnings of the strip. These readily lent themselves to spooky tales of quasi-horror and barbaric intensity. Generally, “The Eerie Unknown” and deluded dabblers in darkness were oft-used elements in Hawkman tales, as seen in ‘Czar, the Unkillable Man’, wherein the Avian Avenger, back in the USA and reunited with Shiera, contests a merciless golem animated by a crazed sculptor aiming to get rich at any cost. Issue #8 offered another deranged technologist as Professor Kitzoff – ‘The Sunspot Wizard’ – alters the pattern and frequency of solar blemishes to foment riot, madness and chaos on Earth… until the Winged Wonder intervenes, after which in ‘The Creatures from the Canyon’ Hawkman repels aquatic invaders living in the depths 5,000 feet below Manhattan Island after they decide to expand their ancient empire upwards…

Bidding for an old firearm at an auction in #10, Hall is inexorably drawn into a maddening murder-mystery and hunt for a lost Colorado goldmine in ‘Adventures of the Spanish Blunderers’, before ‘Trouble in Suburbia’ manifests after a hit-&-run accident draws plucky Shiera into a corrupt and convoluted property-scam. Boyfriend Carter is quite prepared to stand back and let her deal with the villains – even if Hawkman must exert some surreptitious muscle to close the case. Another murderous scam then involves an old High Society chum as ‘The Heart Patient’ reveals how a devious gold digger and a rogue doctor serially poison healthy young men to fleece them into paying for a cure, whilst in #13, ‘Satana, the Tiger Girl’ preys on admirers for far more sinister reasons: pitting Hawkman and Shiera against scientifically hybridised killer-cats…

‘The Awesome Alligator’ sees an elder god return to Earth, inspiring and equipping a lethal lunatic in a plot to conquer America with ancient secrets and futuristic super-weapons. None of those incredible threats could withstand cold fury and a well-wielded mace, however…

At this time the Pinioned Paladin usually dispatched foes of humanity with icy aplomb and single-minded ruthlessness, and such supernatural thrillers as #15’s ‘The Hand’ gave Fox & Moldoff ample scope to display the reincarnated warrior’s savage efficiency, as when he tracks down a sentient severed fist stealing and slaughtering at its inventive master’s command. In #16,‘The Graydon Expedition’ reinforces the hero’s crusading credentials after ferociously independent Shiera Saunders goes missing in Mongolia, and the Winged Wonder undertakes a one-man invasion of a fabulous lost kingdom to save her. Flash Comics #17 offered ‘Murder at the Opera’, putting the bold birdman on the trail of an arcane Golden Mummy Sect with a perilously prosaic origin and agenda, whilst #18 has him investigating skulduggery in the Yukon after the philanthropic Miss Saunders rushes north to offer aid to starving miners during ‘The Gold Rush of ’41’.

Evidently capable of triumphing in any environment or milieu, Hawkman next derailed deranged physicist Pratt Palmer in #19, when that arrogant savant attempts to become the overlord of crime using his deadly ‘Cold Light’ discoveries. One month later, ‘The Mad Bomber’ sees the Avian Ace ally with a racketeer to stop mad scientist Sathan destroying their city with remote-controlled aerial torpedoes, after which Hawkman must end the tragically terrible accidental rampage of an extraterrestrial foundling raised by a callous rival for Shiera’s affections in ‘Menace from Space’…

This high-flying compilation concludes with October 1941’s Flash Comics #22 and ‘The Adventure of the Killer Gang’, wherein stubborn Shiera witnesses a bloody hijacking and determines to make the bandits pay. Although she again helps Hawkman deal with the murderous vermin as a civilian here, big changes were in store for her…

Already in All Star Comics #5 (July 1941) she had first worn wings and a costume of her own, and in Flash Comics #24 (December 1941) she would at last become an equal partner in peril and fully-fledged hero: Hawkgirl. Sadly that’s a tale for another volume…

Exotic, engaging and fantastically inviting, these Golden Age adventures are a true high-point of the era and still offer astonishing thrills and chills. When all’s said and done it’s all about the heady rush of raw adventure, but there’s also a fabulous frisson of nostalgia here to wallow in: recapturing that magical full-sensorium burst of smell and feel and imagination-overload that finds kids at a perfect moment and provokes something visual and conceptual that almost literally blows the mind.

We re-read stories hoping to rekindle that instantly addictive buzz and constantly seek out new comics desperately hoping to recapture that pure, halcyon burst, and these lost mini-epics are phenomenally imbued with everything fans need to make that breathtaking moment happen. Hopefully DC will realise that one day soon and revive these compelling compulsive collections: either in solid form or at least as digital editions…
© 1940, 1941, 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Situation is Hopeless


By Ronald Searle (Penguin Books)
ISBN: 978-0-67064-731-6 (HB) 978-0-1-4006-312-7 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced for satirical effect.

I should stop watching the news before writing these recommendations…

Sometimes there is simply no need for complex story-telling. Just occasionally the graphic narrative only needs a title and the talents of an artistic phenomenon to convey not just a story, not only shades of depth and texture but also, most magically, the pure emotion of a situation made real with line and colour.

Ronald Searle, globetrotting British expatriate caricaturist and commentator, made pictorial wonders for decades. His surreal and abstract grotesques charmed generations whilst he either made telling points or just made us want to laugh until we burst.

This slim collection of full colour animal drawings, criminally out-of-print (but mercifully readily available and inexpensive from a number of internet-based retailers) was – and remains – one of his dark, sardonic and manic best.

Searle was one of a very gifted few (I’d number Ken Reid, Leo Baxendale, Murray Ball and Hunt Emerson among them) who actually draw funny lines. No matter how little or how much they need to say, they can imbue the merest blot or scratch of ink with character, intent and wicked, wicked will.

During WWII he was a Japanese POW at the infamous Changi Prison. In 1944 the second St Trinian’s cartoon ever was drawn in that hellhole and it survived along with his incredible war sketches to see print once peace broke out. Searle was a slave worker on the Siam-Burma Railroad (a ghastly story for another time and place) and daily risked his life both in making pictures and by keeping them.

His mordantly funny cartoons appeared in many places such as Punch, Lilliput, The Sunday Express, and other collections of his work include Hurrah for St. Trinian’s!, The Female Approach, Back to the Slaughterhouse, The Terror of St. Trinian’s, Souls in Torment, Merry England, etc., The St. Trinian’s Story, Which Way Did He Go? and Pardong m’sieur.

His intensely manic mirthwork has influenced countless other cartoonists. His unique visualisation and darkly comic satirical cynicism in the St. Trinian’s drawings and utterly captivating vision of boarding school life as embodied in the classically grotesque Nigel Molesworth (created with Geoffry Willans for Punch and released to enormous success as Down With Skool!, How to be Topp!, Whizz For Atomms! and Back in the Jug Agane) influenced generations of children and adults, playing its part in shaping our post-war national character and language.

And have I mentioned yet that his drawings are really, really funny?

Featuring such visual delights as ‘Imbecile rodent confident that it has a foolproof claim against the Disney Organization’, ‘Loquacious parrot convinced that it is teaching man a basic vocabulary’, ‘Aggressive chicken applying Kung Fu to a Peking Duck’ and ‘Baby seal under the impression that clubs are centres of social activity’ the 32 masterpieces of edgy madcappery in The Situation is Hopeless could make a brick laugh out loud.

… And boy howdy do we need all such artificial aids to joy right now…
© 1980 Ronald Searle. All Rights Reserved.