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Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection volumes 10: Big Apple Battleground (1977-1978)


By Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Bill Mantlo, Archie Goodwin, Scott Edelman, Ross Andru, Don Perlin, John Romita Jr., Sal Buscema, Mike Esposito, Jim Mooney, Frank Giacoia, Tony DeZuñiga, Al Milgrom, Bob McLeod, Gil Kane, & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5526-7 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

The Amazing Spider-Man was a comic book that matured with – or perhaps just slightly ahead of – its fan-base. This epic compendium of chronological webspinning wonderment sees the World’s Most Misunderstood Hero facing even greater and ever-more complex challenges as he slowly recovers from the trauma of losing his true love and greatest enemy in the same horrific debacle. Here you will see all that slow recovery comes unstuck

Once original co-creator Stan Lee replaced himself with young Gerry Conway, scripts acquired a more contemporary tone (which naturally often feels quite outdated from here in the 21st century): purportedly more in tune with the times whilst the emphatic use of soap opera subplots kept older readers glued to the series even when bombastic battle sequences didn’t. Moreover, as a sign of the times, a hint of cynical surrealism also began creeping in…

For newcomers – or those just visiting thanks to Spider-Man movies: super-smart-yet-ultra-alienated orphan Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider during a school outing. Discovering strange superhuman abilities which he augmented with his own natural chemistry, physics and engineering genius, the kid did what any lonely, geeky nerd would do with such newfound prowess: he tried to cash in for girls, fame and money. Making a costume to hide his identity in case he made a fool of himself, Parker became a minor media celebrity – and a criminally vainglorious one. To his eternal regret, when a thief fled past him one night he didn’t lift a finger to stop him, only to find when he returned home that his guardian uncle Ben Parker had been murdered.

Crazed and vengeful, Peter hunted the assailant who’d made his beloved Aunt May a widow and killed the only father he had ever known. He discovered to his horror that it was the self-same felon he had neglected to stop. His irresponsibility had resulted in the death of the man who raised him, and the traumatised boy swore to forevermore use his powers to help others.

Since that night, the wondrous wallcrawler tirelessly battled malefactors, monsters and madmen, with a fickle, ungrateful public usually baying for his blood even as he perpetually saves them. The high school nerd grew up and went to college. Because of his guilt-fuelled double-life he struggles there too but found abiding love with cop’s daughter Gwen Stacy… until she was murdered by Green Goblin Norman Osborn. Now Parker must pick up the pieces of his life and perhaps even find new love…

This compelling compilation reprints Amazing Spider-Man #165-185, Annual #11, snippets of #12 and a crossover from Nova #12: collectively spanning cover-dates February 1977 – October 1978, and confirming an era of astounding introspective drama and captivating creativity wedded to growing science fictional thinking. Stan Lee’s hand-picked successor Gerry Conway had moved on after reaching his creative plateau, giving way (via Archie Goodwin) to fresh authorial steersman Len Wein. Even so, scripts continued to blend contemporary issues – which of course feel quite outdated from here in the 21st century – with soap opera subplots to keep older readers glued to the series as the outrageous adventure and bombastic battle sequences beguiled the youngsters. Thematically, tales moved away from sordid street crime as outlandish villains and monsters took centre stage, but the most sensational advance was an insidious scheme which would reshape the nature of the web-spinner’s adventures to this day.

For all that, the wallcrawler was still indisputably mainstream comics’ voice of youth, defining being a teen for young readers of the 1970s, tackling incredible hardships, fantastic foes and the most pedestrian and debilitating of frustrations. In ASM #165 by Wein, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, ‘Stegron Stalks the City!’ – attempting to revivify fossilised saurian skeletons in the city’s museums. To expedite his plans, the Dinosaur Man blackmails his old boss Dr Curt Connors, but in #166 accidentally unleashes the biologist’s savage alter ego The Lizard, prompting a ‘War of the Reptile-Men!’ Ghastly gadfly J Jonah Jameson then tries again to destroy his personal Bête Noir by hiring unsurprisingly glamourous technologist Dr. Marla Manning to construct an upgraded mechanoid hunter, leaving our hero ‘…Stalked by the Spider-Slayer!’. The arachnid avenger barely notices however, as a new menace distracts him. Eerie ephemeral bandit Will o’ the Wisp is clearly stealing for a monstrous master with a hidden agenda and no mercy, and inevitably hero, Spider-Slayer and deadly twinkly pawn clash in the middle of Manhattan where tragedy is presaged by ‘Murder on the Wind!’

Suspense replaces action in ‘Confrontation’, as obsessive bully Jameson accosts Peter Parker with photographic proof confirming the lad is the hated wallcrawler. The evidence was supplied by a mystery villain but even as our hero seemingly talks his way out of trouble, a new enemy emerges as evil psychologist Doctor Faustus targets Spider-Man with drugs and illusions to prove ‘Madness is All in the Mind!’ (co-inked by Frank Giacoia) before we slip into that aforementioned crossover..

The Man Called Nova was in fact a boy named Richard Rider. The new kid was a working-class teen nebbish in the tradition of Peter Parker – except he was good at sports and bad at learning – who attended Harry S. Truman High School, where his strict dad was the principal. His mom worked as a police dispatcher and he had a younger brother, Robert, who was a bit of a genius. Rider’s life changed forever when a colossal star-ship with a dying alien aboard bequeathed to the lad all the mighty powers of an extraterrestrial peacekeeper and warrior. Centurion Rhomann Dey had been tracking a deadly marauder to Earth. Zorr had already destroyed the warrior’s idyllic homeworld Xandar, but the severely wounded, vengeance-seeking Nova Prime was too near death and could not avenge the genocide.

Trusting to fate, Dey beamed his powers and abilities towards the planet below where Rich is struck by an energy bolt and plunged into a coma. On awakening, the boy realises he has gained awesome powers – and all the responsibilities of the last Nova Centurion…

Here, Nova #12 (August 1977, by Wolfman, Sal Buscema & Giacoia) asks ‘Who is the Man Called Photon?’ by teaming the neophyte hero with the far more experienced webslinger in a fair-play murder mystery, brimming with unsavoury characters and likely killers after Rich’s uncle Dr. Ralph Rider is killed by a costumed thief. However, there are ploys within ploys occurring and, after the mandatory hero head-butting session, the kids join forces and the mystery is dramatically resolved in Amazing Spider-Man #171’s ‘Photon is Another Name For…?’ courtesy of Wein, Andru & Esposito. Amazing Spider-Man Annual #11 follows as ‘Spawn of the Spider’ (by Archie Goodwin, Bill Mantlo, Don Perlin & Jim Mooney) pits the webslinger against a disgruntled, deranged movie special effects man who creates a trio of bio-augmented arachnoid monsters to destroy the wallcrawler…

Brief back up ‘Chaos at the Coffee Bean!’ – by Scott Edelman and inker Al Milgrom – details how Peter and Mary Jane Watson are caught in a hostage situation at their college bistro: most noteworthy as the pencilling debut of future superstar creator John Romita Jr.

ASM #172 features ‘The Fiends from the Fire!’ (Wein, Andru & Giacoia) as Spidey trashes idiotic skateboarding super-thief Rocket Racer only to stumble into true opposition when old foe Molten Man attacks, desperately seeking a way to stop himself becoming a blazing post-human funeral pyre. Mooney inked concluding chapter ‘If You Can’t Stand the Heat…!’ as a cure for the blazing villain proves ultimately ineffectual and personally tragic for Parker’s oldest friends, after which #174 declares ‘The Hitman’s Back in Town!’ (with inks by Tony DeZuñiga & Mooney).

This sees still relatively unknown vigilante Frank – The Punisher – Castle hunting a costumed assassin hired to remove Jameson, but experiencing an unusual reticence since the killer is an old army pal who had saved his life in Vietnam. Despite Spider-Man being outfought and outthought in every clash, the tale resolves with the hero somehow triumphant, even though everything ends with a fatality in #175’s Mooney-embellished conclusion ‘Big Apple Battleground!’. An extended epic then sees the return of Spider-Man’s most manic opponent. Illustrated by Andru & DeZuñiga, ‘He Who Laughs Last…!’ features the return of the Green Goblin targeting Parker’s friends and family. When the original villain died, his son Harry Osborn lost his grip on sanity and became a new version, equally determined to destroy Spider-Man. On his defeat, Harry began therapy under the care of psychiatrist Bart Hamilton and seemed to be making a full recovery. Now both patient and doctor are missing…

The assaults on Parker’s inner circle increase in ‘Goblin in the Middle’ (Esposito inks) with the emerald psychopath expanding operations to challenge crime-boss Silvermane for control of New York’s rackets whilst ‘Green Grows the Goblin!’ (Mooney inks) and ‘The Goblin’s Always Greener!’ (Esposito) see devious plots and shocking twists lead to near-death for Aunt May before an astonishing three-way Battle Royale ends the crisis in ‘Who Was That Goblin I Saw You With?’

At this time becoming a star of live action television, Spider-Man’s adventures were downplaying traditional fantasy elements as a transitional moment comes, preceded by #181’s sentiment-soaked recapitulation of all Parker has endured to become who he now is. Crafted by Mantlo, Sal Buscema & Esposito ‘Flashback!’ not only acts a jumping on point but also sets up a major change unfolding over the upcoming months, before soap opera shenanigans and the era’s tacky TV-informed silliness converge as Marv Wolfman takes up the typewriting, and artisans Ross Andru & Mike Esposito reunite as Spidey learns motorised mugger ‘The Rocket Racer’s Back in Town!’ The techno-augmented thief is currently embroiled in a nasty extortion scheme too, which somehow impacts the fast-fading, hospitalised May Parker before bursting into full bloom in #183…

After finally proposing to Mary Jane, Peter is suddenly distracted by more mechanised maniacs (courtesy of a subplot building the role of underworld armourer The Tinkerer) as Bob McLeod inks ‘…And Where the Big Wheel Stops,  Nobody Knows!’ This sees Rocket Racer getting his just deserts and MJ giving Peter an answer he wasn’t expecting…

Old girlfriend and current stranger Betty Brant-Leeds returns with a dying marriage and nostalgic notions next, making Parker’s social life deeply troubling as he prepares to graduate college. Meanwhile, JJ Jameson has another fringe science secret to conceal whilst Peter’s student colleague Phillip Chang reveals a hidden side of his own when Chinese street gangs target him for their flamboyant new lord in ‘White Dragon! Red Death!’, leading to a martial arts showdown with the wallcrawler playing backup in ASM #185’s ‘Spider, Spider, Burning Bright!’ Happily, the ferocious fiery furore is fully finished by the time second feature ‘The Graduation of Peter Parker’ highlights the Parker clan’s big day and reveals why and how it all goes so terribly wrong…

To Be Continued…

Also included in this hefty trade paperback tome are contemporary house ads, John Byrne’s cover to Amazing Spider-Man Annual #12 as well as the framing sequence to the reprint it contained, drawn by star in waiting John Romita Jr. & veteran Frank Giacoia. Those are followed by Kane & Giacoia’s front-&-back covers for Marvel Treasury Edition #14 (The Sensational Spider-Man), plus its frontispiece by Andru; Arnold Sawyer’s painted cover, assorted articles and a Stan Lee interview from F.O.O.M. #17 (March 1977).

That’s backed up with material from Spider-Man special F.O.O.M. #18 (June), including Romita senior’s cover and interview, plus promo features on the then-forthcoming all-Spiderman ‘Mighty Marvel Comics Calendar 1978’,  accompanied by the finished product illustrated by Romita Sr., Al Milgrom, Jack Kirby, John Verpoorten, Paul Gulacy, Pablo Marcos, Larry Lieber, Giacoia, John Buscema, Joe Sinnott, Gene Colan, Sal Buscema, Gil Kane, George Pérez, Andru & Esposito and Byrne. There’s even more F.O.O.M. fun to follow, taken from #22 (Autumn 1978), highlighting the wallcrawler’s impact in Japan, a meeting with Osamu Tezuka, and Larry Lieber storyboards for a Spider-Man film, before the wonderment pauses with a Kane/Joe Rubinstein pin-up from Marvel Tales #100 and original art.

With covers throughout by Romita Sr., Ed Hannigan, Andru, Esposito, Giacoia, Kane, Joe Sinnott, Ernie Chan, Dave Cockrum, Terry Austin, Byrne, & Milgrom, these yarns confirmed Spider-Man’s growth into a global multi-media brand. Blending cultural veracity with superb art, and making a dramatic virtue of the awkwardness, confusion and imputed powerlessness most of the readers experienced daily, resulted in an irresistibly intoxicating read, delivered in addictive soap-styled instalments, but none of that would be relevant if Spider-Man’s stories weren’t so utterly entertaining. This action-packed collection relives many momentous and crucial periods in the wallcrawler’s astounding life and is one all Fights ‘n’ Tights fanatics must see…
© 2024 MARVEL.

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Abandoned Cars


By Tim Lane (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-341-5 (HB) 978-1-60699-3415 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

Do you remember America? It’s clearly not the place it used to be. Maybe it never was.

Tim Lane is a post-war American. His inner landscape is populated with B-Movies, Rock & Roll, junk-memorabilia, big cars with fins, old TV shows, Jack Kerouac, the seven ages of Marlon Brando, pulp fictions, young Elvis, distilled Depression-era experiences (all of them from “The Great” to the latest), black & white images on TV, loss of faith in old values, Mad Avenue propaganda, compromised ideals, frustrated dreams and waking nightmares. Lane calls that oh-so-plunderable societal gestalt and psychic landscape “The Great American Mythological Drama”, and for this first compilation of his stark, intriguing comic strips dipped deep to concoct his own striking contributions to the Great Double Martini of Life…

Many contemporaries used that shared popular culture to create new paintings and sculptures (see any of the many “lowbrow” or “pop surrealist”  tomes by Schorr, Ryden, Ledbetter et al that we’ve previously reviewed) but Lane eschewed the gallery art arena for his explorations, opting instead for the only true American medium of expression, the story, and toils bombastically in its ugly bastard offspring: Comics.

He draws in stunning monochrome: hard-edged, uncompromising and enticingly moody, and these short stories, vignettes, observations and sequential investigations are far from the usual stock of funnies. The compelling contents are culled from varied sources like Legal Action Comics, Hotwire, Typhon, Riverfront Times and Lane’s self-published magazine Happy Hour in America from 2003 to 2008, ranging from tales of dark, eccentric whimsy (‘American Cut-Out Collectibles’, ‘The Manic-Depressive from Another Planet’ and ‘The Aries Cow’) to philosophically charged musings (‘Ghost Road’, ‘To Be Happy’ and ‘The Drive Home’). There are Pop cultural pastiches (‘Outing’ and ‘Doo-Wop and Planet Earth’), fascinating autobiography and reportage (‘Spirit’ parts 1-3, ‘In My Dream’ and ‘You Are Here: the Story of Stagger Lee’) to just plain old-fashioned noir-tinted thrillers like ‘Cleveland’ and ‘Sanctuary’.

Also included are numerous untitled, enigmatic and addictive short pieces, and for my money the most evocative and powerful piece herein is an all-but-wordless, 2-page rumination on age and loss: ‘Those Were Good Years’. You’d have to be made of stone to be unmoved…

Crafting comics is clearly not a job or hobby for Lane. Serious artists have always struggled to discover greater truths through their creative response to the world, and he has obviously found his instrument in black line on white and his muse in the shabby, avuncular, boisterous, scary detritus of our everyday, blue-collar communal past. The result is stunning and highly intoxicating.

Questing, introspective, insightful, melancholic and as desperately inquiring as the young Bob Dylan, with as many questions, even fewer answers and just as much lasting, life-altering entertainment to be derived…

Why haven’t you got this book yet?… And once you’ve sorted that, why not try his 2014 graphic novel The Lonesome Go or 2020’s Toybox Americana: Characters Met Along the Way?
© 2003-2008, 2010 Tim Lane. All rights reserved.

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Mighty Marvel Masterworks Presents The Silver Surfer volume 1 1966-1968: When Calls Galactus


By Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, John Buscema, Jack Kirby, Marie Severin, Joe Sinnott, Sal Buscema, Frank Giacoia & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-4909-9 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Cautiously bi-monthly and cover-dated November 1961, Fantastic Four #1 (by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, George Klein & Christopher Rule) was crude: rough, passionate and uncontrolled excitement. Thrill-hungry fans pounced on it and that raw storytelling caught a wave of change starting to build in America. It and succeeding issues changed comic books forever.

In eight short years FF became the indisputable core and most consistently groundbreaking series of Marvel’s ever-unfolding web of cosmic creation: bombarding readers with a ceaseless salvo of concepts and characters at a time when Kirby was in his conceptual prime and continually unleashing his vast imagination on plot after spectacular plot. Inspired, Stan Lee scripted some of the most passionate superhero sagas that Marvel – or any publisher, for that matter – had or has ever seen. Both were on an unstoppable roll, at the height of their creative powers, and full of the confidence that only success brings, with The King particularly eager to see how far the genre and the medium could be pushed. A forge of stunning creativity and endless excitement, the title was the proving ground for dozens of future stars and mesmerising concepts; none more timely or apt than the freewheeling cosmic wanderer and latter-day moral barometer dubbed The Silver Surfer.

These stories are timeless and have been published many times before but here we’re boosting 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.

What Has Gone Before: Although pretty much a last-minute addition to Fantastic Four #48-50’s ‘Galactus Trilogy’, Kirby’s scintillating creation the Silver Surfer quickly became a watchword for nuance, depth and subtext in the Marvel Universe… and one Lee kept as his own personal toy for many years.

Tasked with finding planets for space god Galactus to consume and, despite the best efforts of intergalactic voyeur Uatu the Watcher, one day the Silver Surfer discovered Earth, where the latent nobility of humanity reawakened his own suppressed morality; causing the shining scout to rebel against his master and help the FF save the world. In retaliation, Galactus imprisoned his former herald on Earth: the ultimate outsider on a planet utterly ungrateful for his sacrifice.

The Galactus Saga was a creative peak from a period where the Lee/Kirby partnership was utterly on fire. The tale has all the power and grandeur of a true epic and has never been surpassed for drama, thrills and sheer entertainment but it’s not included here: for that treat you’ll need to see any of many other Marvel collections…

In 1968, after increasingly frequent guest-shots and even a solo adventure in the back of Fantastic Four Annual #5 (happily included here at the end; chronologically adrift but well worth the wait), the Surfer finally got his own (initially double-length) title at long last. There’s also a sassy spoof to puncture any pomposity overdose you might experience.

This stellar collection collects pertinent material from Silver Surfer #1-4, Fantastic Four Annual #5 and Not Brand Echh Astonish #13, reprinting appearances of the Starry-eyed Sentinel – cover dates November 1967 to May 1969 – and begins with ‘The Origin of the Silver Surfer!’

Illustrated by John Buscema & Joe Sinnott, the drama unfolds after a prolonged flashback sequence and repeated examples of crass humanity’s brutal callousness and unthinking hostility, detailing how Norrin Radd, discontented soul from an alien paradise named Zenn-La, became the gleaming herald of a planetary scourge. Radd had constantly chafed against a civilisation in comfortable, sybaritic stagnation, but when Galactus shattered their vaunted million years of progress in a fleeting moment, the dissident without hesitation offered himself as a sacrifice to save the world from the Devourer’s hunger.

Converted into an indestructible, gleaming human meteor, Radd agreed to scour the galaxies looking for uninhabited worlds rich in the energies Galactus needs to survive, thus saving planets with life on them from destruction. He didn’t always find them in time…

The stories in this series were highly acclaimed – if not really commercially successful – both for Buscema’s agonisingly emphatic and truly beautiful artwork and Lee’s deeply spiritual and philosophical scripts. The narrative tone was accusatory; with the isolated alien’s travails and social observations creating a metaphoric status akin to a Christ-figure for an audience concurrently maturing and rebelling against America’s creaking and unsavoury status quo.

The second 40-page adventure exposes a secret invasion by extraterrestrial lizard men ‘When Lands the Saucer!’, forcing the Surfer into battle against the sinister Brotherhood of Badoon without human aid or even awareness in ‘Let Earth be the Prize!’…

A little side-note for sad nit-picking enthusiasts like me: I suspect that the original intention was to drop the page count to regular 20-page episodes from #2, since in terms of pacing both the second and third issues divide perfectly into two-parters, with cliffhanger endings and splash page/chapter titles that are dropped from #4 onwards.

Silver Surfer #3 is pivotal in the ongoing saga as Lee & Buscema introduce Marvel’s Satan-analogue in ‘The Power and the Prize!’ Lord of Hell Mephisto sees the Surfer’s untarnished soul as a threat to his evil influence on Earth. To crush the anguished hero’s spirit, the demon abducts Norrin Radd’s true love Shalla Bal from still-recovering Zenn-La and torments the Sentinel of the Spaceways with her dire distress in his sulphurous nether-realm…

The concluding chapter sees mortal angel of light and devil of depravity conduct a spectacular ‘Duel in the Depths’ wherein neither base temptations nor overwhelming force are enough to stay the noble Surfer’s inevitable triumph.

Just as wicked a foe then attempted to exploit the Earth-bound alien’s heroic impulses in #4’s ‘The Good, The Bad and the Uncanny!’ (inked by new art collaborator Sal Buscema) wherein Asgardian God of Evil Loki offers lies, deceit and even escape from Galactus’ terrestrial cage to induce the Silver Stalwart to attack and destroy the mighty Thor. The result is a staggering and bombastic clash that just builds and builds as the creative team finally let loose and fully utilise their expanded story-proportions and page count to create smooth flowing, epic action-adventures, with truth triumphant in the end…

As foretold, this compulsive if not quite comprehensive comic book chronicle concludes with the groundbreaking vignette from Fantastic Four Annual #5 – released in August 1967 – wherein the rapidly rising star-in-the-making got his first solo shot. ‘The Peerless Power of the Silver Surfer’ (inked by Frank Giacoia) is a pithy fable of cruel ingratitude that reintroduced the Mad Thinker’s lethal A.I. assassin Quasimodo. The Quasi-Motivational Destruct Organ was a malevolent murder machine trapped in a static computer housing dreaming of being able to move within the real world. Sadly, although its pleas initially found favour with the gullibly innocent stranger from the stars, the killer computer itself had underestimated the power and conscience of its rash saviour. Eventually, the gleaming guardian of life was explosively forced to take back the boon he had impetuously bestowed in a bombastic bravura display of Kirby action and Lee pathos…

One last silly sally comes with ‘The Origin of the Simple Surfer!’ by Roy Thomas and the sublime Marie Severin from Not Brand Echh #13, May 1969. This time alien émigré Borin-Kadd ruminates on his strange fate and pontificatingly pines for his daftly-beloved Shallo-Gal when… well you get the idea, right?

Completing the treats are a reprint cover gallery of stunning original art covers by Buscema & Sinnott and house ads.

Silver Surfer was always a pristine and iconic character when handled well – and sparingly – and these early forays into a more mature range of adventures, although perhaps a touch heavy-handed, showed that there was far more to comic books than cops and robbers or monsters and misfits. That exploratory experience and inbuilt mystique of a hero as Christ allegory made the series a critically beloved but commercially disastrous cause célèbre until eventually financial failure killed the experiment.

After the Lee/Kirby/Ditko sparks had initially fired up the imaginations of readers in the early days, the deeper, subtler overtones and undercurrents offered by stories like these kept a maturing readership enthralled, loyal and abidingly curious as to what else comics could achieve if given half a chance, and this fabulously lavish tome offers the perfect way to discover or recapture the thrill and wonder of those startlingly different days and times.
© 2023 MARVEL.

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Lucky Luke volume 45: Tying The Knot


By Achdé & Laurent Gerra, in the style of Morris and coloured by Anne-Marie Ducasse: translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-188-4 (Album PB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times, although if you were of a mean-spirited mien or read recent news you might as easily say “This book includes Discriminatory Content produced by French men of a certain age and disposition”.

On the Continent, the general populace has a mature relationship with comics: according them academic and scholarly standing as well as meritorious nostalgic value and the validation of acceptance as an actual art form. That frequently means that what we English-speakers too-readily define and dismiss just by depending on art style and first glance as For Kids or Not For Kids can contain material and themes many parents are not keen on their spawn knowing too soon… or even ever. In their mother tongues, attitudes and even snarky political and social commentary are all over children’s icons like Asterix or Lucky Luke: just another reason parents should read these gems with and during their offsprings’ formative years. Just a friendly warning…

Doughty, dashing and dependable cowboy “good guy” Lucky Luke is an even-tempered do-gooder able to “draw faster than his own shadow”. He amiably ambles around the mythic Old West, having light-hearted adventures on his petulant and rather sarcastic wonder-horse Jolly Jumper. For nearly 80 years, his exploits have made him one of the top-ranking comic characters in the world.

Originator Morris crafted enough material for nine albums before allying with René Goscinny (Asterix, Iznogoud, Le Petit Nicolas, Oumpah-Pah) to co-craft 45 albums before the writer’s untimely death. Thereafter Morris soldiered on both singly and with other collaborators, going to the Last Roundup in 2001, having drawn fully 70 adventures, plus numerous sidebar sagebrush sagas with Achdé & Laurent Gerra, Benacquista & Pennac, Xavier Fauche, Jean Léturgie, Jacques Pessis and more: all taking their own shot at the venerable vigilante with writer Jul, taking on the storytelling role from 2016.

Lucky Luke has a long history in Britain, at first pseudonymously amusing and enthralling young readers in the late 1950s, syndicated to weekly anthology Film Fun. He rode back into comics-town in 1967 for comedy paper Giggle, using nom de plume Buck Bingo. And that’s not counting the numerous attempts to establish him as a book star, beginning in 1972 with Brockhampton Press and continuing via Knight Books, Hodder Dargaud UK, Ravette Books and Glo’Worm, until Cinebook finally found the right path in 2006.

The taciturn trailblazer regularly interacts with historical and legendary figures as well as even odder fictional folk in tales drawn from key themes of classic cowboy films – as well as some uniquely European notions, and interpretations. As previously hinted, the sagebrush star is not averse to being a figure of political change and Weapon of Mass Satire.

Cinebook’s 45th Lucky Luke album was officially the 74th individual exploit of the frontier phenomenon, originally appearing au continent in 2006 as La Corde au cou by Achdé & Laurent Gerra. It’s been translated as From the Gallows to the Altar or, as here, the comfortably ambiguous Tying the Knot…

In what looks now like a moment of timely prescience, this tale simultaneously addresses issues of executive expedience, jurisprudence and imbalanced sexual politics as the incoming US President instantly settles the overwhelming problem – and cost – of overcrowded jails by arbitrarily commuting prison full life tariffs into death sentences. With their consecutive time calculated as a further 387 years, appalling arch-bandits the Dalton (Averell, Jack, William and devious, slyly psychotic, dominant diminutive Joe) are the most vicious and feared outlaws in America, and promptly moved to death row with 14 days to wait until they stop being a problem to decent citizens…

Old adversary Lucky is astounded by the news and heads straight for the prison, where the panicked siblings are seeking any means of escape. Thanks to corrupt, incarcerated Judge Portly, they find it in matrimony. An old law states that if any woman will wed a gallows bird, the sentence is quashed, prompting ruthless Ma Dalton to undertake a frantic hunt for a quartet of desperate idiots willing, lonely or bribe-able women to hitch to her horrible boys. The task proves near-impossible – especially as most of the boys would rather die than “settle down” – but when the noose tightens and absolutely no woman (no matter how fallen) can be found, salvation comes from the Flat Heads tribal reservation where the daughters of wily Chief Cheerful Eagle (grotesquely formidable Little Moon, Hissing Viper, Clairvoyant Mole and adopted gamin Prairie Flower) are quite coincidentally all hunting for husbands and prepared to not look too closely…

Suspecting a trick and expecting a double cross, PotUS appoints Lucky Luke as watchdog (accompanied by dopey mutt Rin Tin Can) to ensure the treacherous villains stay faithful to their vows and out of trouble. Thus the gunslinger is a gleeful witness to a different kind of penal servitude as the Daltons daily learn the downsides of matrimony in a somewhat inappropriate and unnecessary barrage of unreconstructed gags redolent of 1970s UK sitcoms disparaging “’Er Indoors…” whilst depicting acts of battleaxe/tartar/harridan schtick…
The horrible things the Daltons endure soon have repercussions for the entire country, when Cheerful Eagle’s true intentions are exposed. Soon the bandits are schooling Flat Heads in the arts of robbery, plundering and terrorism, advancing a bold scheme to destroy America’s devotion to and dependence upon money. With the nation’s economy and true god existentially endangered, Lucky must swing into action again, just like he always knew he would have to…

Best suited to older kids with some historical perspective and social comprehension – and although the excellent action and slapstick situations constantly war with sexist undercurrents – this is an episode that could divide purist fans and those with modern sensibilities, although anyone not offended by movies like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers or Paint Your Wagon won’t have too much to moan about.
© Dargaud Editeur Paris 2006 by Achdé & Gerra. © Lucky Comics. English translation © 2014 Cinebook Ltd.

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Lucky Luke volume 44: Lucky Luke vs Pat Poker


By Morris, translated by Erica Jeffrey (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-155-6 (Album PB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

As we know him now, Lucky Luke is a rangy, good-natured, lightning-fast cowboy roaming the fabulously mythic Old West, having light-hearted adventures with his horse Jolly Jumper whilst interacting with a host of historical and legendary figures and icons. His exploits have made him one of the bestselling comic characters in Europe (83 collected books plus around a dozen spin-offs and specials – totalling over 300 million albums in at least 33 languages thus far), with all the usual spin-off toys, computer games, puzzles, animated cartoons, TV shows and live-action movies that come with that kind of popularity.

The simplicity of the spoof cowboy tales means that older stories can generally sit quite comfortably alongside newer material crafted for a more modern readership. That’s certainly the case in this rather ancient and formative brace of yarns from 1953. Lucky Luke was created in 1946 by Belgian animator, illustrator and cartoonist Maurice de Bévère AKA Morris. For years Le Journal de Spirou Christmas Annual (L’Almanach Spirou 1947) was cited as the wellspring, before he launched into his first weekly adventure ‘Arizona 1880’ on December 7th 1946, but the feature actually debuted earlier that year in the multinational weekly comic, sans a title banner and only in the edition released in France.

Whilst toiling as a caricaturist for magazine Le Moustique and working at the CBA (Compagnie Belge d’actualités) cartoon studio, Morris met future comics superstars Franquin and Peyo and became one of la Bande des quatre – The Gang of Four – comprising Jijé, Will and old comrade Franquin: leading proponents of a new, loosely free-wheeling artistic style known as the “Marcinelle School” which dominated Le Journal de Spirou in aesthetic contention with the Ligne Claire style used by Hergé, EP Jacobs and other artists associated with Le Journal de Tintin. In 1948 said Gang (excluding Will) visited America, meeting US creators and sightseeing. Morris stayed for six years, meeting fellow traveller René Goscinny, scoring work at newly-formed EC sensation Mad and always making copious notes and sketches of the swiftly vanishing Old West. Morris stayed six years, an “American Period” seeing him chase an outsider’s American Dream while winning fame and acclaim in his own country. That sojourn is carefully unpicked and shared by expert researchers Christelle & Bertrand Pissavy-Yvernault in Lucky Luke: The Complete Collection volume 2 if you require further elucidation…

Working solo (with early script assistance from his brother Louis De Bevere) until 1955, Morris produced nine albums of affectionate sagebrush parody and action before formally uniting with Goscinny, who became the regular wordsmith as Luke attained the dizzying heights of superstardom, commencing with ‘Des rails sur la Prairie’ (Rails on the Prairie)’, which began in Le Journal de Spirou on August 25th 1955.

Here though is a truly wild and woolly delight – originally released in December 1953 as fifth compiled album Contre Pat Poker. It offers a far more boisterous and raw hero in transition, hitting his stride and strutting his stuff by highlighting Morris’ filmic and comics influences and caricaturing gifts following that eventful US sojourn…

Contained herein are ‘Clean-up in Red City’ from LJdS #685-697 (May 31st – August 23rd 1951) and notional sequel ‘Rough and Tumble in Tumbleweed’ with the former detailing via a string of sequential gags and skits how Lucky becomes a sheriff after being embarrassingly robbed. Enduring harsh bullying while assessing the lay of the land as ruled by crooked gambler/saloon owner Pat Poker, the solitary rider eventually kicks out all the gamblers, shysters and ne’er-do-wells led by the sinister conman.
Hard on its heels comes ‘Rough and Tumble in Tumbleweed’ (from LJdS #735-754 spanning May 15th – September 25th 1952) with sheep farmers harassed and imperilled by cattlemen over Luke’s attempts to broker peace. His efforts are especially hindered by shepherd-hating gunslinger Angelface but necessarily escalate to crisis level action after escaped convict Pat Poker slips into town, using his gift for cheating to take over the local saloon. His intent to remove Lucky and leads to an alliance with Angelface to murder their mutual enemy. Sadly for them, even this alliance of evil is insufficient to tame the wily western wonder man…

Morris died in 2001 having drawn fully 70 adventures, plus spin-off yarns of Rantanplan (“dumbest dog in the West” and a winning spoof of cinema canine Rin-Tin-Tin), with Achdé, Laurent Gerra, Benacquista & Pennac, and Jul taking over the franchise, producing many more tales of the immortal indomitable legend of the West.

These youthful forays of an indomitable hero offer grand joys in the tradition of Destry Rides Again and Support Your Local Sheriff, superbly executed by a master storyteller: a wonderful introduction to a unique genre for modern kids who might well have missed the romantic allure of the Wild West that never was…
© Morris/Dupuis, 1949 to 1954 for the first publications in Le Journal de Spirou. © Morris/Dupuis 2017.

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Stingray Comic Albums volumes 1 & 2 – Battle Stations! & …Stand By For Action



Written, edited and compiled by Alan Fennel with Dennis Hooper, illustrated by Ron Embleton, with Steve Kite (Ravette Books/Egmont)
ISBN: 978-1-85304-456-4 (Album TPB #1) 978-1-85304-457-1 (Album TPB #2)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

The worlds of Gerry Anderson have provided generations of fans with life-changing, formative puppet-based entertainment since 1957’s The Adventures of Twizzle and 1958’s Torchy the Battery Boy (made with fellow fantasy puppetry pioneer Roberta (Space Patrol) Leigh before they went their separate ways). Anderson’s later TV efforts included Four Feather Gulch, Supercar, Fireball XL5, Stingray, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Joe 90, and truly bizarre transition to live action feature The Secret Service. As was the nature of the times, these audio-visual delights spawned comics iterations, initially licensed to outside publishes but eventually via an in-house publishing venture created in collaboration with City Magazines (part of the News of the World group).

TV Century 21 (the unwieldy “Century” was eventually dropped) patterned itself on a newspaper – albeit from 100 years into the future – a shared conceit that carried the avid readership into a multimedia wonderland as television and reading matter fed off each other.

Stuffed with high quality art and features, tabloid sized TV21 featured Anderson strips such as Fireball XL5 and Supercar as well as the crack team of aquanauts pitted against a bizarre and malevolent plethora of beings who lived beneath the waves. Even the BBC were represented by a full-colour strip starring The Daleks. In-house crossovers were common and graphic adventures were supplemented with stills from the TV shows (and later, films). A plenitude of photos also graced the text features adding to the unity of one of the industry’s first “Shared Universe” products. The comic also offered features, gags, and other (US) television adaptations such as My Favourite Martian and Burke’s Law.

TV Century 21 #1 launched on January 23rd 1965 – Happy Birthday future-boys! – instantly capturing the hearts and minds of millions of children, and further proving to comics editors the unfailingly profitable relationship between television shows and healthy sales. Filled with high quality art and features, printed in glossy, gleaming photogravure, TV21 featured previous shows in strips including latest hit Stingray, prior to next big draw Thunderbirds beginning on 15th January 1966, and incredibly illustrated by Frank Bellamy. It also ran the adventures of future spy Lady Penelope in advance of her screen debut.

In an attempt to mirror real world situations and be topical, the allegorically Soviet state of Bereznik constantly plotted against the World Government (for which read The West) in a futuristic Cold War to augment aliens, aquatic civilisations, common crooks and cosmic disasters that perpetually threatened the general wellbeing of the populace. Even the BBC’s TV “tomorrows” were represented by a full-colour strip starring The Daleks. In that first year, Fireball XL5, Supercar, Lady Penelope and Anderson’s epic submarine series Stingray captivated fans and catered to their future shocks, with top flight artists including Mike Noble, Eric Eden, Ron Embleton, Don Lawrence and Ron Turner.

These collected comic albums stem from the early 1990s (when many of Anderson’s unforgettable creations enjoyed a popular revival on TV and in comics publishing), each reprinting three unforgettable strip thrillers from the legendary weekly, scripted by editor/writer Alan Fennel (and possibly studio partner Dennis Hooper) and limned by the incredible Ron Embleton (Strongow the Mighty, Wulf the Briton, Wrath of the Gods, Biggles, The Trigan Empire, Oh, Wicked Wanda! and many more, in Mickey Mouse Weekly,  Express Weekly, TV Century 21, Princess, Boys’ World, Look and Learn, Penthouse and others). For TV21, he especially distinguished himself on the Captain Scarlet and Stingray strips.

In September 2024 an epic hardback collection – the Stingray Comic Anthology Vol. 1: Tales from the Depths – was released by Anderson Entertainment: a hefty hardback with no digital edition available yet. That’s a book for another time and if it’s beyond your means at the moment, these paperback tomes are still readily available, remarkably cheap and eminently re-readable…

Although reproduction leaves something to be desired, and chronologically adrift in terms of running order, initial compilation Stingray Comic Album volume 1: Battle Stations delivers weekly undersea action by Fennel, Dennis Hooper & Embleton, collectively covering TV21 #23-44, cover-dated 26th June – 20th November 2065. As part of the conceit, every issue was forward dated by a century, so if you still need help that’s 26th June – 20th November 1965…

Spanning #23 to 30 (26th June – 14th August) ‘The Ghosts of Station Seventeen’ see trusty aquanauts Troy Tempest, Phones Sheridan and Commander Sam Shore investigating a research station no scientist can remain in, uncovering sly skullduggery by aquatic aliens, whilst ‘Aquatraz’ (#31-37, 21st August to 2nd October) offers a gritty yet fantastical prison break yarn as our heroes must spring WASP personnel held by Titan at the bottom of the ocean. The action ends with another calamitous battle bonanza as ‘The Uranium Plant Invasion’ (TV21 #38-44, 9th October 2065 November 20th 1965) sees Titan’s forces steal the secrets of atomic energy from the surface men and upgrade their Terror Fish fleet. The resultant war is spectacular, short, and a near-fatal wake-up call for humanity…

 

Stingray Comic Album volume 2 declares …Stand By for Action and re-presents the earliest episodes of the original run in staggeringly lovely 2-page weekly episodes by Fennel & Embleton as crafted for the incredibly rewarding but notoriously laborious and difficult to master photogravure print process. Throughout, these tales run in landscape format spreads – so read across, not down the page, guys…

Crafted by Fennel & Embleton, ‘The Monster Jellyfish’ (TV21 #1-7, 23rd January – March 6th 1965) sees subsea despot Titan of Titanica attack the World Aquanaut Security Patrol with a mutated sea predator, capable of sinking the most modern aircraft carriers in the fleets. Thankfully Troy, Phones and amphibian ally Marina are on the job and Marineville is saved by the sterling super-sub, before plunging on to face the astounding ‘Curse of the Crustavons’ (#8-14, March 13th – April 24th).

Once the threat of losing all Earth’s capital cities to talking lobster villains is dealt with, the drama descends into far more personal peril as ‘The Atlanta Kidnap Affair’ (#15-21, May 1st – June 12th 1965) sees Commander Shore’s capable daughter made a pawn in the ongoing war. Abducted by Titan’s agents whilst on a painting holiday, the incident incites Troy to go undercover to track her down and rescue her…

These are cracking fantasy rollercoaster rides full of action and drama and illustrated with captivating majesty by the incredible Ron Embleton, who supplemented his lush colour palette and uncanny facility for capturing likenesses with photographic stills from the TV shows. Whether for expediency, artistic reasons tor editorial diktat the effect on impressionable young minds was electric. This made the strips “more real” then and the effect has not diminished with time. These are superb treat for fans of all ages.
© 1992 ITC Entertainment Group Ltd. Licensed by Copyright Promotions Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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Mighty Marvel Masterworks presents Captain America volume 3: To Be Reborn


By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, Joe Sinnott, Syd Shores, Dan Adkins & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5432-1 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

During the natal years of Marvel Comics in the early 1960s Stan Lee & Jack Kirby opted to mimic the game-plan which had paid off so successfully for National/DC Comics, albeit with mixed results. Beginning cautiously in 1956, Julie Schwartz had scored incredible, industry-altering hits by re-inventing the company’s Golden Age greats, so it seemed sensible to try and revive the characters that had dominated Timely/Atlas in those halcyon days two decades previously. A new Human Torch had premiered as part of the revolutionary Fantastic Four, and in the fourth issue of that title the amnesiac Sub-Mariner resurfaced after a 20-year hiatus (everyone concerned had apparently forgotten the first abortive attempt to revive an “Atlas” superhero line in the mid-1950s). The teen Torch promptly won his own solo lead-feature in Strange Tales (from issue #101 on) where eventually – in #114 – the flaming kid fought a larcenous villain impersonating the nation’s greatest lost hero…

Here’s a quote from the last panel…

“You guessed it! This story was really a test! To see if you too would like Captain America to Return! As usual, your letters will give us the answer!” I guess we all know how that turned out. With reader-reaction strong, the real McCoy was promptly decanted in Avengers #4 (cover dated March but on sale from January 3rd 1964). Marvel’s inexorable rise to dominance of the American comic book industry really took hold in 1968 when most of their characters finally got their own titles. Prior to that and due to a highly restrictive distribution deal the company was tied to a limit of 16 publications per month.

After a captivating, attention-hogging run in Avengers, the Sentinel of Liberty won his own series as half of a “split-book” with fellow Avenger and patriotic barnstormer Iron Man, starting in Tales of Suspense #59. This thrifty third Mighty Marvel Masterworks Captain America collection assembles those last exploits from ToS #95-99 and continuance as Captain America #100-105 of his own title (spanning cover-dates November 1967 to September 1968) in a kid-friendly edition that will charm and delight fans of all vintages…

These stories are timeless and have been published many times before but The Mighty Marvel Masterworks line is 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.

Scripted throughout by Lee, Cap’s adventures had been blending high concept espionage thrillers milking the burgeoning spy fad of the mid-Sixties with spectacular superhero shockers after the Star-Spangled Avenger joined superspy Nick Fury in many missions as a (more-or-less) Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Here however with Kirby locked-&-loaded into full action mode a portentous change of pace amplifies already frenetic tensions as – in rapid succession – ‘A Time to Die… A Time to Live’ and ‘To Be Reborn!’ see the eternal hero retire and reveal his secret identity to the world, only to jump straight back into the star-spangled saddle for S.H.I.E.L.D. for #97’s ‘And So It Begins…’ after a rash of would-be replacements provoke a campaign of opportunistic assassination attempts from the underworld…

The saga would carry the Sentinel of Liberty back into his own title: a 4-part tale that spectacularly concludes in issue #100, with which number Tales of Suspense became simply Captain America. Guest starring the Black Panther, it recounts the apparent return of long-dead nemesis Baron Zemo and his lethal, world-threatening orbiting Death Ray. ‘The Claws of the Panther!’ was inked by both Joe Sinnott and the great Syd Shores (a Cap illustrator from the 1940s) who became regular embellisher with ‘The Man Who Lived Twice!’ before the premier 100th first issue (how weird is that?) revisited Cap’s origin before climactically closing the superb team-up thriller with ‘This Monster Unmasked!’

Without pause, Lee, Kirby & Shores enacted another epic encounter across Captain America #101-104, featuring fascist revenant The Red Skull and introducing another appalling Nazi revenge-weapon. Opening with ‘When Wakes the Sleeper!’ and furious follow-up ‘The Sleeper Strikes!’, our hero and his support crew Agent 13 and Nick Fury hunt a murderous mechanoid capable of ghosting through solid Earth and blowing up the planet. Although the immediate threat soon seems quashed, the infernal instigator is still at large and #103 reveals ‘The Weakest Link!’ as a budding romance with S.H.I.E.L.D. operative Agent 13 (finally named after two years as Sharon Carter) is interrupted by the nefarious Nazi. The uber-fascist’s new scheme of nuclear blackmail extends to a second issue, wherein his band of war-criminal assassins, The Exiles, test Cap nigh to destruction on the hidden isle where he becomes the ‘Slave of the Skull!’ (with the loose, flowing inking of Dan Adkins) before turning the tables and crushing the plotters.

After that, a period of done-in-one all-action yarns began with ‘In the Name of Batroc!’ (Lee, Kirby & Adkins), a brisk super-villain team-up wherein Living Laser and The Swordsman ally with gallic mercenary Batroc the Leaper to swipe a new superbomb, concluding the patriotic Fight’s ‘n’ Tights fist-fest on an exuberant if nonsensical high note…

To Be Continued…

With covers by Kirby, Frank Giacoia, Gene Colan, John Romita, Sinnott, Shores & Adkins, there’s just enough room for a brace of pencil layouts of unused covers to compliment these tales of dauntless courage and unmatchable adventure, fast-paced and superbly illustrated. These exploits rightly returned Captain America to heights his revamped Golden Age compatriots the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner never regained. Pure escapist magic, these are glorious treats for the eternally young at heart, episodes of sheer visual dynamite that cannot be slighted and must not be missed.
© 2024 MARVEL.

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Django, Hand on Fire: The Great Django Reinhardt


By Salva Rubio & Efa, translated by Matt Madden (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-287-8 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-68112-288-5

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

The world has now formally and officially gone to hell in a handcart, so how about some soothing, jolly music – or at least some comics about that music?

Publisher NBM’s line of European-originated biographies never fails to delight, with this oversized luxury hardcover (also available in digital formats) one of the most engaging thus far: skilfully deconstructing – when not actually aiding and adding to – the myths and legends surrounding a top contender for the title of greatest guitar player of all time…

Django, Hand on Fire rewardingly reunites award-winning screenwriter, historian and novelist Salva Rubio (Max; The Photographer of Mauthausen) with animator/illustrator Ricard Fenandez (AKA Efa of Les Icariades; Rodriguez; L’Âme du Vin; Le Soldat). Their other collaborations are also beautiful biographies – Monet: Itinerant of Light and Degas & Cassatt: A Solitary Dance.

Originally released in France, the translated story of Django, main de feu is preceded here by an introductory prose appraisal from Thomas Dutronc before a stunning confection of painterly images traces the life of the troubled and unfortunate Roma musician from his fraught birth in a frozen field in Belgium to his second birth and reunion with the true love he threw away and found again. That natal moment was in 1910 as his father and the other itinerant performers of their tribe were eking out a wage entertaining outworlders.

By 1922, the troupe were resident in Paris’ “Zone”: an enclave for “his sort” where social outcasts like gypsies could reside until posh folks found a use for them. The lad was cocky and troublesome, an arrogant illiterate born for mischief but blessed with astounding musical skill. His life turned around when his mama acquired a six-string banjo for him and all his energies suddenly refocussed on mastering music. Soon Django was making money – and losing it gambling – even before he was considered a man…

Still an emotional child, he became the star of a professional (adult) band but his actions and attitude lost him many friends and family and ultimately the girl who adored him: Irma AKA Naguine. She faithfully trailed in his wake as producers and record publishers tracked the young man and watched in resignation as he succumbed to the shining blonde glory of faux flower artisan Florine/Bella. Naguine left the Zone entirely when Django and the flower girl wed, but swore to return…

The musician’s meteoric rise stalled only as he awaited his first child’s birth. As they slept in their wagon, it caught fire and although Bella got out, Django was badly burned on his legs and left hand. How – driven by his formidable mother – he battled back to overcome his life-changing injuries and, by changing his style, mastered another instrument, found undying fame and finally realized where his true love lay is a fabulous (if not strictly accurate) tale to warm the heart and gladden the eyes…

The pictorial paean to persistence and testament to passion is supported by a Bibliography and Creator Biographies plus ‘Django Reinhardt, from mystery to legend… In the light of History’: a fulsome, copiously-illustrated essay detailing the author’s factual choices and path to this particular truth, categorised and examined in ‘A mythical birth’; ‘The Zone’; ‘An interloper in the world of bal-musette’, ‘J’ai deux amours: Naguine and …le jass…’, ‘The Cross of Blood…’; ‘…and the fiery flowers’; ‘Hospital for the Poor’ and ‘Hand on fire’…

Sparkling and inspirational, this is treat for every music historian and intrigued dilettante: a beguiling magic window into another world and one you should seek out tout de suite…
© DUPUIS 2020 by Rubio, Efa. All rights reserved.

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The Complete Just a Pilgrim


By Garth Ennis & Carlos Ezquerra with Paul Mounts, Ken Wolak, Chris Eliopoulos & various (Dynamite Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-60690-003- (HB/Digital edition) 978-1-60690-007-9 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

As the entire planet ruminates on what about to happen and ponders how many different kinds of “American Dream” can coexist, let’s go back to a future that never happened – yet – but look less like harmless fiction every day…

Like its troubled protagonist, Just a Pilgrim is a much-travelled item that never sat comfortably anywhere, but still has much to recommend it. Originally miniseries Just a Pilgrim (2001) and sequel Just a Pilgrim: Garden of Eden (2002), the property started at Blackbull Comics with Britain’s Titan Books releasing trade paperback compilations, before this deluxe hardcover/soft cover/digital edition from Dynamite Entertainment.

Fleetway veterans Garth Ennis & Carlos Ezquerra have a long association with war comics and the apocalyptic visions of alternate lifestyle bible 2000AD, so combining their kindred sensibilities for near-future post-apocalyptic adventures always pays off in visceral hits and giggles. Since the 5-part miniseries spawned an almost immediate follow-up, they must have been more or less correct, but as the volatile state of the comics industry ended many indie companies at that time, this compilation comes to us via media/intellectual property specialists Dynamite…

Moreover, co-creator Ennis stated that even after past works and collaborations with Carlos Ezquerra (such as Bloody Mary and Adventures in the Rifle Brigade) he was keen to push the envelope on the mythology and iconography of the classic movie western hero/antihero.

The black sardonic ironies of Judge Dredd, Preacher, Hellblazer and True Faith are not present in this exploration of Christian indoctrination ascendant produced with veteran combat illustrator Carlos Ezquerra for Black Bull Comics way back in 2001 and 2002.

This treat is garnished and flavoured with all the iconic spaghetti western tropes and themes of Clint Eastwood via traditional “a man’s gotta do…” John Wayne nonsense taken to its outrageous but so logical extremes, but be warned: in this exploration of religious fanaticism there’s not much room (some, not a lot…) for the cruel, ultra-violent gross-out stuff that made Hitman, The Boys and A Train Called Love such guilty pleasures.

Behind that gripping Mark Texiera cover is a yarn steeped in classic western lore and references as an embattled wagon train picks its way through hostile territory and appalling predators. The kid who is our narrator and viewpoint is helplessly drawn to a charismatic stranger his parents fear but cannot survive without, and death is absolutely everywhere…

The saga of this particular Man With No Name happens on a parched Earth that has been subjected to a vast solar flare that dried up the oceans.

Following Mark Waid’s text preamble ‘If You Call This Introduction “Just an Introduction,” I’ll F***ing Kill You’ the story unfolds in little Billy Shepherd’s own diarised words. The kid is 10½ and riding across the dusty Atlantic floor from sunken wreck to sundered bleaching hulk in ‘Anno Domini’ when raiders attack the convoy of migrant families in search of better lives. Thankfully, the sea floor foragers are singlehandedly driven off by a big guy with a strange long gun and crucifix-scarred face.

The newcomer is murderously pious and after despatching the bandits to their final judgement, offers to guide the trekker through the wastes and awful mutant beasts inhabiting the region to possible wetter climes. Sadly, his staunch resistance has made them all the sole concern of obsessive psychotic quadriplegic blind pirate king Castenado, who diverts all his plundered resources and army of “Buckers” to destroying him and the intruders he’s protecting beginning in ‘To Reign in Hell’…

Despite his upstanding Christian values, the Pilgrim terrifies everyone but Billy and as the brutal voyage and attacks continue, he is finally recognised for the monstrous infamous sinner he used to be – a grisly tale told in of cannibalism and redemption recounted in ‘Bloody Baskets’ before the inevitable showdown with Castenado and his horde in ‘Firestarter’ and blistering conclusion in the Alamo-like mouldering ruins of the Titanic in ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’…

One year later Just a Pilgrim: Garden of Eden sees the wanderer faithfully reading not only the Bible but also Billy’s diary as he discovers a recess in the pacific ocean floor where water still exists; supporting abundant vegetation and a small colony of scientists. The ‘Marianas’ oceanic trench is a staging post where techs seek to fix up a space shuttle to take them all to a new less hostile world. However, under constant insidious assault, and picked off by mutant creatures that reanimate the dead, they are willing to suspend their distrust of the religious maniac if he can stop the killings. It’s an ill-judged compromise as the deaths mount in ‘To the Stars by Hard Ways’ and the colonists are further split by the Pilgrim’s ruthless and sanctimonious safeguarding actions. Most vocal is Dr Christine Page who clashes with him constantly but after he gifts her Billy’s diary she begins to realise how much the fanatic has actually already softened…

When the dead-riders attack in force and torch the garden, little girl Maggy is taken below ground and the Pilgrim leads a doomed rescue party after her. In face of their latest losses, and a most appalling act that has debased them all, the scientists make ready to leave Earth, giving the outcast one last chance to save Maggy and join them in a ‘Last Supper’ that only goes even more wrong. As fate signals the end of humanity’s time on Earth and forces the fanatical zealot to reexamine his beliefs and ask ‘Why Has Thou Forsaken Me?’ the apostle of the apocalypse ends his crusade in the only way he ever could…

If you were wondering, colours come courtesy of Paul Mounts & Ken Wolak, with Chris Eliopoulos lettering this violently engaging, sublimely cathartic and painfully accurate prognostication of what lies in store for us…

Supplementing the iconographic saga is a map of the dry world and travel progress of the Pilgrim, a Cover Gallery of 15 variants by Steve Dillon, Joe Jusko, Mark Texiera, Tim Bradstreet, J.G. Jones, Glenn Fabry, Kevin Nowlan, Bill Sienkiewicz, John McCrea and Dave Gibbons, backed up by an 8-page Pin-Up Gallery from Amanda Conner, McCrea, Nelson, Darick Robertson, Paul Mounts and Jimmy Palmiotti, before closing with a Sketchbook section packed with roughs and character designs by Ezquerra, Jusko and Jones.

Excessively violent, trenchant, savagely satirical, gripping and never less than totally thrilling, this slice of dark, theology shows Ennis and much-missed Ezquerra at their anarchic best, offering an everyman view of all the hell-and-stupidity we can expect.

These are grown-up comics at its very best and long overdue for their rightful place on your bookshelf or in your digital library.
™ & © 2008 Wizard Entertainment. All rights reserved.

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OMAC – One Man Army Corps by Jack Kirby



By Jack Kirby with D. Bruce Berry, Mike Royer, Joe Kubert & various (DC)
ISBN: 978-1-7795-1026-6 (TPB) 978-1-4012-1790-7 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

There’s a magnificent abundance of Kirby collections in print, but none seem more prescient than this compact gem of dark prognostication that “The King” (perhaps thankfully) never lived long enough to see come true in all the ways that most matter…

This oft-compiled collection re-presents possibly his boldest, most bombastic and most heartfelt creation after the comics landmark that was Jack Kirby’s Fourth World cycle.

Famed for larger than life characters and gigantic, cosmic imaginings, “King” Kirby was an astute, spiritual man who had lived through poverty, gangsterism, the Depression and World War II. He experienced pre-war privation, post-war optimism and opportunism, Cold War paranoia, political cynicism and the birth and death of peace-seeking counter-cultures, but always looked to the future while understanding human nature intimately. In OMAC: One Man Army Corps, he gave his darkest assumptions and prognostications free rein, with his “World That’s Coming” now proving far too close to the world we’re frantically trying to escape or save right now…

In 1974, with his newest creations inexplicably tanking at DC, Kirby tentatively considered a return to Marvel, but – ever the consummate professional – he scrupulously carried out every detail of an increasingly onerous and emotionally unrewarding DC contract. When topical supernatural star turn The Demon was cancelled, the King needed another title to maintain his Herculean commitments (he was legally obliged to deliver 15 completed pages of art and story per week!) and returned to an idea he had shelved back in 1968. That was to re-interpret Captain America for a possible future where all Kirby’s direst suspicions and fears could be made manifest. In 1974 he revisited those anxieties: producing a nightmare scenario that demanded not a hero but a warrior.

Dubbing his Day-After-Tomorrow dystopia “The World That’s Coming”, Kirby let his mind run free – and scared – to birth a frighteningly close appreciation of our “Now”, where science and wealth have outstripped compassion and reason, whilst circumventing law and ethics, as humanity teeters on the brink of self-inflicted global annihilation. His thoughts then are represented here in the editorial that accompanied the premier issue…

OMAC #1 launched with a September/October 1974 cover-date, introducing the Global Peace Agency, a world-wide Doomwatch-style police force who manufactured a super-soldier to course-correct mankind and crisis-manage the constant threats to a species with hair-trigger fingers on nuclear stockpiles, chemical weapons of mass destruction and made-to-measure biological horrors. Base, uncontrolled human nature is the true threat manifested in this series, and that was first demonstrated by decent young man Buddy Blank who – whilst working at Pseudo-People Inc. – discovers that their euphemistically entitled Build-A-Friend division hides a far darker secret than merely pliant girls who come in kit-form (I believe we finally have those now, too, for those with much money but no moral compass…)

Luckily Buddy has been singled out by the GPA’s resident genius Professor Myron Forest for eternal linkage to sentient satellite Brother Eye. His atoms shifted and reconstructed, Buddy is fundamentally restructured and rebuilt to become a living God of War, and the new-born human weapon easily destroys his ruthless employers before their murderous plans can be fully realised. ‘Buddy Blank and Brother Eye’ was followed by a truly prophetic tale, wherein impossibly wealthy criminal Mister Big purchases an entire city simply to assassinate Professor Forest in ‘The Era of the Super-Rich!’

Kirby’s tried and trusted approach was always to pepper high concepts throughout blazing action, and #3 was the most spectacular yet. OMAC fought ‘One Hundred Thousand Foes!’ to get to murderous Marshal Kafka, terrorist leader of a rogue state and a private army, arsenal of WMDs and solid belief that the United Nations can’t touch him. Sound familiar…? That incredible clash carries on and concludes in #4’s ‘Busting of a Conqueror!’, whilst in #5, Kirby moved on to other, newer crimes for the new world. The definition of a criminal tends to blur when you can buy anything – even law and justice – but rich old people cherry-picking young men and women for brain-transfer implantation is (hopefully) always going to be a no-no. Still, you can sell or plunder specific organs even now…

Busting the ‘New Bodies for Old!!’ racket took two issues, and after the One-Man-Army-Corps smashed ‘The Body Bank!’ he embarked on his final adventure. Ecological disaster and water shortage was the theme of the last tale, but as our hero trudges across a dry, desolate lake bottom amidst the dead and dying marine life he is horrified to discover the disaster is the work of one man. ‘The Ocean Stealers!’ (#7) introduced scientific madman Doctor Skuba, who mastered atomic manipulation techniques that had turned feeble Buddy Blank into an unstoppable war machine.

Joe Kubert crafted the cover to final outing OMAC #8. ‘Human Genius Vs Thinking Machine’ was an epic ending seeing Brother Eye apparently destroyed with Skuba and Buddy perishing together in a cataclysmic explosion. But that final panel was a hasty, last-minute addition by unknown editorial hands, for the saga never actually finished. Kirby – his contract completed – had promptly returned to Marvel and new challenges such as Black Panther, Captain America, 2001, Devil Dinosaur, Machine Man and especially The Eternals.

Hormone treatments, Virtual Reality, medical computers, satellite surveillance, genetic tampering and all the other hard-science predictions in OMAC pale into insignificance against Kirby’s terrifyingly accurate social observations in this bombastic and tragically incomplete masterpiece. OMAC is Jack Kirby’s Edwin Drood: an unfinished symphony of such power and prophecy that it informs not just the entire modern DC universe and inspires ever more incisive and intriguing tales from the King’s artistic inheritors but still presages more truly scary developments in our own mundane and inescapable reality. As always in these wondrously economical collections it should be noted that the book includes many Kirby pencilled pages, confirming his artistry was always a match for his imagination.

Jack Kirby is unique and uncompromising. If you’re not a fan or simply not prepared to see for yourself what all the fuss has been about then no words of mine will change your mind. That doesn’t alter the fact that Kirby’s work from 1937 to his death in 1994 shaped the entire American comics scene, affected the lives of billions of readers and thousands of creators in all areas of artistic endeavour around the world for generations and still wins new fans and apostles every day, from the young and naive to the most cerebral of intellectuals. His work is instantly accessible, irresistibly visceral, deceptively deep whilst being simultaneously mythic and human: and just plain Great. Let’s hope there will be future generations around to enjoy them…
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