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Jeff Hawke: The Ambassadors


By Sydney Jordan & Willie Patterson (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-598-9

One the world’s most captivating comics strips is inexplicably almost unknown amongst modern readers, but this appalling state of affairs could so easily be rectified simply by seeking this spiffy deluxe hardback from Titan Books – and its recently reviewed predecessor – and falling under the intoxicating spell of some of the wittiest, most intriguing and outright astounding British science fiction ever written or drawn.

In both style and quality these superb tales from the 1960s are the only serious rival to the legendary Dan Dare that Britain has ever produced.

Sydney Jordan began his saga of a thinking man’s Flash Gordon in the Daily Express on February 2nd 1954, writing the first adventures himself. In 1956 his old school friend and associate Willie Patterson moved from Scotland to London to assist with fifth adventure ‘Sanctuary’, and stayed on to script the next one – ‘Unquiet Island’ – whilst sorting out his own career as a freelance scripter for such titles as Amalgamated Press’s Children’s Encyclopaedia, Caroline Baker – Barrister at Law and eventually Fleetway’s War Picture Library series.

Jordan was never comfortable scripting, preferring to plot and draw, but his choice of collaborators was always immaculate – comicbook creator and sci fi novelist Harry Harrison wrote ‘Out of Touch’, (October 10th 1957 – April 5th 1958), Nick Faure and Martin Asbury worked with him in the 1970s and during the feature’s final days Syd hired a couple of talented tykes named Brian Bolland and Paul Neary to assist…

Patterson continued to supplement and assist Jordan intermittently until 1960 when – with fourteenth tale ‘Overlord’ – Patterson assumed the writing duties on a full-time basis, thereby launching the strip’s Golden Age. He remained the wordsmith-in-chief until 1969.

This second superb hardback volume (begging for re-release – or at least revival via a digital edition) opens with another fascinating memoir from Jordan himself before the wonderment begins.

‘Pastmaster’ (August 3rd – October 18th 1961) sees Space Scientist and trouble-shooter Hawke visiting the British Moonbase just as a crazed time-traveller from the future materialises, intent on changing history by transporting the entire complex back 10,000 years, and giving humanity a huge technological jump-start in the race’s development.

A terrific mix of sly comedy and startling action in the inimitable, underplayed style of Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass and the best of John Wyndham, this romp of time-bending cops-&-robbers is a splendid appetiser for ‘The Immortal Toys’ (October 19th – 5th April 1962) which immediately follows.

Here, ancient Hindu jewels in the shape of insects are revealed to be something else entirely, leading Hawke and a rambunctious archaeologist reminiscent of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s bombastic Professor Challenger to a long-hidden tomb and concrete evidence of alien visitors from Earth’s earliest pre-history.

No fan of Indiana Jones would want to miss this yarn – especially as here all the science, history and stunts are both plausible and possible and there are no nuke-defying fridges to be found anywhere…

‘The Ambassadors’ (6th April 1-13th July) is a winningly sharp, slick social satire with a brace of avian aliens – looking just like owls – arriving in London to offer Earth – free, gratis and for nothing – a device that will do away with work forever.

Instantly politicians and the media descend like vultures and the dry, self-deprecatory comedy of films like The Mouse That Roared resonates beside the wit and influence of Jonathan Swift as events snowball to a conclusion. Patterson could employ humour like a scalpel and, augmented by Jordan’s fantastic artwork and rich, incisive facility with expressions, produced here a gentle satire to rival the best of Private Eye, Tom Lehrer or TW3. If you’re also a devotee of Robert Sheckley or Eric Frank Russell, you’ll delight in how this yarn celebrates and exposes the worst of humanity…

Trust me, you’ll believe an owl can cry…

Exotic high adventure and Big Concept science dominates ‘The Gamesman’ (14th July – September 23rd) as a bored alien employs sub-atomic worlds for role-playing diversions; abducting a giant warrior, a technical wizard, a feisty “princess” and Hawke and his assistant from their respective worlds to play with – and for – him.

Unfortunately, ambition is a universal problem and the extraterrestrial dungeon-master quickly finds himself “played”…

The last tale in this sublime volume is another human-scaled fable touching on contemporary concerns, but although humour is still present in ‘A Test Case’ (September 24th 1962- 2nd January 1963), the over-arching theme is nuclear terror, as a second-rate scientist is granted ultra-advanced atomic knowledge by well-meaning aliens who have no idea how fragile a human mind can be…

The frantic desperation and tension as Hawke and the authorities scour London for a super-nuclear device primed to eradicate them all is chillingly reminiscent of the Boulting Brothers 1950 film classic Seven Days to Noon and makes of this memorable tale a timeless salutary warning…

Maybe we should send a copy to Pyongyang and Mar-a-Lago…

These are stories that appeared in daily episodes and their sardonic grasp of the nature of “the man-in-the-street” make them a delightful slice of social history as well as powerful and pure escapist entertainment.

Jeff Hawke is a rightly revered and respected milestone of graphic achievement almost everywhere except his country of origin. Hopefully there will be further attempts to reprint these graphic gems that will find a more receptive audience, and maybe we’ll even get to see those elusive earlier stories as well for a more receptive audience in the 21st century World of Tomorrow.
© 2008 Express Newspapers Ltd.

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Thor Epic Collection: The Wrath of Odin


By Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Vince Colletta & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-0379-4

The Mighty Thor was the title in which Jack Kirby’s restless fascination with Cosmic Phenomena and Man’s place and role in the universe was honed and refined through his most dazzling graphics and captivating concepts.

The King’s career-defining string of power-packed signature pantheons all stemmed from a modest little fantasy/monster title called Journey into Mystery where – in the summer of 1962 – a tried-and-true comicbook concept (feeble mortal transformed into god-like hero) was revived by fledgling Marvel Comics to add an iconic Superman analogue to their growing roster of costumed adventurers.

However, whereas the rapidly proliferating Marvel Universe grew ever more interconnected as it matured with assorted superheroes literally tripping over each other as they contiguously and continually saved the world from their New York City bases, the mythic heritage of Thor and the soaring imagination of Kirby increasingly pulled the Thunder God away from mortal realms into stunning new landscapes.

Admittedly, the Son of Odin would pop back to Earth for an adventure or two, but it is clear that – for Kirby – Earth was just a nice place to visit whilst the stars and beyond were the right and proper domain of the Asgardians and their foes…

Crafted entirely by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & Vince Colletta, this bombastic full-colour paperback tome – also available in eFormats – sees those fascinations culminating in a consciousness-expanding run of Asgardian exploits (spanning Thor #131-153 and covering August 1966 to June 1967) which changes forever the scope and power of comics storytelling…

For those who came in late: Once upon a time lonely, lamed American doctor Donald Blake vacationed in Norway only to encounter 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 dictators, costumed crazies and cheap thugs gradually gave way to a vast panoply of fantastic worlds and incredible, mythic menaces.

Soon, the magnificent warrior’s ever-expanding world of Asgard was a regular feature and mesmerising milieu for the hero’s earlier adventures, heralding a fresh era of cosmic fantasy to run beside the company’s signature superhero sagas.

Thus, every issue also carried a spectacular back-up series that grew to be a solid fan-favourite. Tales of Asgard – Home of the Mighty Norse Gods gave Kirby space to indulge his fascination with legends by providing initially complete vignettes and ultimately lengthy serialised epics – in every sense of the word.

Initially adapted myths, these little yarns grew into sagas unique to the Marvel universe where Kirby built his own cosmos and mythology, underpinning the company’s entire continuity.

This titanic tome commences with the Thunderer and Olympian rival Hercules returning triumphant from war in the underworld. Thor then secures a pledge from his terrifyingly inconsistent father Odin that he may wed his mortal love Jane Foster.

Hurtling back to Earth however, Thor finds his beloved long gone and her erstwhile roommate Tana Nile exposed as a superpowered Rigellian Colonizer who has just taken possession of Earth. ‘They Strike from Space!’ was merely prologue for a fantastic voyage to the depths of space and a unique universal threat…

At the end of the previous volume Tales of Asgard saw a band of assembled Asgardians face the horde of all-conquering Harokin as another multi-chaptered classic began, with young Thor impersonating the dynamic reiver. Here, the saga resumes with the hero exposed even as colossal companion Volstagg steals the enemy’s apocalyptic wizard-weapon ‘The Warlock’s Eye!’…

Issue #132 sees the Thunderer explosively laying down the law on ‘Rigel: Where Gods May Fear to Tread!’ and single-handedly liberating Earth. At the back of the comic ‘The Dark Horse of Death!’ arrives in the Tales of Asgard segment, looking for its next doomed rider…

The following issue is a certified Kirby Classic, as ‘Behold… the Living Planet!’ introducing the malevolent Ego, a sentient world and master of a living Bio-verse: a stunning visual tour de force that tiled one High Concept after another upon Thor, his new artificial pal Recorder and the reeling readership, whilst Harokin’s tale ended in one last ride to ‘Valhalla!’

The threat of invasion over, Thor returns to Earth to search for Jane, and after diligent efforts finds her with ‘The People Breeders!’ – a hidden Balkan enclave wherein pioneering geneticist The High Evolutionary was instantly evolving animals into men. His latest experiment had created a lupine future-nightmare – ‘The Maddening Menace of the Super-Beast!’ so it’s just as well the Thunder God was on hand.

Back in Asgard and an undefinable time agone, ‘When Speaks the Dragon!’ and ‘The Fiery Breath of Fafnir!’ pitted Thor and his Warriors Three comrades Fandral, Hogun and Volstagg against a staggering reptilian monstrosity: a threat finally quashed in #136’s ‘There Shall Come a Miracle!’

The lead story in that issue is a turning point in the history of the Storm Lord. ‘To Become an Immortal!’ finds Odin transforming Jane Foster into an Asgardian goddess and relocating her to Asgard, but her frail human mind cannot cope with the wonders and perils of the Realm Eternal and she is mercifully restored to mortality and all but written out of the series.

Luckily for the despondent Thunder God the beauteous warrior-maiden Sif was on hand…

With this story Thor’s closest link to Earth was neatly severed: from now on his adventures on Midgard are as a tourist or beneficent guest, not a resident. Asgard and infinity were now his true home, a situation quickly proved by the bombastic clash ‘If Asgard Falls…’

Set in the Gleaming City during the annual Tourney of Heroes (and originally published in The Mighty Thor Annual #2, 1966) this a martial spectacular of outlandish armours and exotic weaponry that turns decidedly serious when the deadly Destroyer is unleashed amidst the wildly warring warriors…

Although Thor had lost his human paramour, he rediscovered his childhood sweetheart, now all grown up and a fierce warrior maid to boot. A good thing too, since ‘The Thunder God and the Troll!’ (#137) introduces the bestial menace of super-troll Ulik and features open warfare begin between the Asgardians and their implacable monstrous foes.

During the spectacular carnage and combat Sif is captured and the Thunderer rushes to Earth to rescue her, whilst legions of monstrous subterranean troglodytes attacked the very heart of the kingdom…

The Tales of Asgard feature was gradually wrapping up, but still offered Kirby a place to stretch his creative muscles. ‘The Tragedy of Hogun!’ offers revelations concerning the gripping history of the dour warrior in an Arabian Nights pastiche which also introduces sinister sorcerer Mogul of the Mystic Mountain.

In ‘The Flames of Battle!’ Thor is reunited with Sif but deprived of his magical mallet Mjolnir, courtesy of exotic technology the trolls have mysteriously developed. Do the malign invaders have a potent new ally or a terrifyingly powerful slave?

Trapped on Earth, the hammerless Thor has no means of returning to the realm beyond the Rainbow Bridge whilst in Asgard, the war goes badly and the heroic gods are close to final defeat…

For the Tales of Asgard segments, ‘The Quest for the Mystic Mountain!’ finds Hogun and his comrades edging closer to victory and vengeance, culminating in a truly stunning Kirby spectacle in Thor #139 as the wandering warriors discover ‘The Secret of the Mystic Mountain!’ In the lead story of that issue, ‘To Die Like a God!’ wraps up the Troll War in eye-popping style as Thor and Sif invade the bowels of the Earth to save the day for humanity and Asgardians alike…

With #140 the extended epics are replaced by a short run of compete, single episode tales heavy on action, starting with ‘The Growing Man!’ as Thor heads back to Earth and discovers New York under attack by a synthetic warrior who grows larger and stronger with every blow struck against him.

Time-travelling marauder Kang the Conqueror is behind the Brobdingnagian brute, whilst in back-up ‘The Battle Begins!’, Hogun and Co are menaced by a terrifying genie…

In #141 Thor confronts ‘The Wrath of Replicus’, a bombastic, bludgeoning epic involving gangsters, aliens and super-robots, counter-pointed by stunning fantasy as the wandering Asgardian warriors meet ‘Alibar and the Forty Demons!’

‘The Scourge of the Super Skrull!’ then pits Thunderer against an alien with all the powers of the Fantastic Four, even as in Asgard a new menace is investigated by Sif and indomitable warrior Balder the Brave. The back-up tale finds Kirby’s seamless melange of myth and legend leap into overdrive as ‘We, Who are About to Die…!’ depicts young Thor and the Warriors Three facing all the mystic menaces of Mogul.

Thor #143 returned to extended epics with ‘…And, Soon Shall Come: the Enchanters!’ (inked by the magnificent Bill Everett) as Sif and Balder meet a deadly trio of wizards plotting to overthrow All-Father Odin, only to fall prey to their power. Escaping to Earth they link up with Thor, but they have been followed…

Everett also inked the Tales of Asgard instalment ‘To the Death!’ as comic relief Volstagg takes centre-stage to seduce Mogul’s sinister sister…

Colletta returned with ‘This Battleground Earth!’, wherein two Enchanters attack the warriors on Midgard whilst the third duelled directly with Odin in the home of the gods. At the back, Mogul declared ‘The Beginning of the End!’

At the height of the battle in the previous issue Odin had withdrawn all the powers of his Asgardian followers, leaving Sif, Balder and Thor ‘Abandoned on Earth!’ Victorious, the All-Father then wanted his subjects home, but his wayward son again opts to stay with mortals, driving Odin into a fury. Stripped of his magical abilities, alone, hungry and in need of a job, the once-god becomes embroiled with the Circus of Crime: hypnotised into committing an audacious theft…

The Tales of Asgard feature wrapped up in spectacular fashion with ‘The End!’, to be replaced in the next issue with The Inhumans – but as that’s a subject of a separate volume, the remainder of this chronicle is all-Norse action, beginning in #146 with ‘…If the Thunder Be Gone!’

Deprived of all power except his natural super-strength, Thor is helpless against the nefarious Ringmaster‘s mesmerism and steals a life-sized, solid gold bull at the villain’s command. When the police interrupt the raid, the hero awakes to find himself an outlaw and a moving target. Things get worse when he was arrested in ‘The Wrath of Odin!’: left a sitting duck for the vengeance of his malign brother Loki. However, the god of Evil’s scheme is thwarted when Sif and Balder rush to Thor’s rescue, provoking Odin to de-power and banish them all in ‘Let There be… Chaos!’

Even as all this high-powered frenzy is occurring, a brutal burglar is terrorising Manhattan. The Wrecker was Public Enemy #1 and when he breaks into the house where Loki is hiding the cheap thug achieves his greatest coup – intercepting a magic spell from the formidable Norn Queen intended to restore the mischief maker’s evil energies. Now charged with Asgardian forces the Wrecker goes on a rampage with only the weakened Thor to challenge him…

Issue #149 entered new territory with ‘When Falls a Hero!’ as, after a catastrophic clash the Wrecker kills Thor. ‘Even in Death…’ has the departed Thunder God facing Hela, Goddess of Death, as Balder and Sif hunt the Norn Queen and Loki. Hoping to save her beloved, Sif enters into a devil’s bargain, surrendering her soul to animate unstoppable war-machine the Destroyer, unaware that the Thunderer had already convinced Death to release him…

In ‘…To Rise Again!’ the Destroyer, fresh from crushing the Wrecker, turns on the resurrected Thor since Sif is unable to communicate with or overrule the death machine’s pre-programmed hunger to kill. The situation is further muddled when Odin arbitrarily restores Thor’s godly might, prompting the Destroyer to go into lethal overdrive…

Meanwhile in the wilds of Asgard, Ulik the Troll attacks Karnilla, Queen of the Norns and Balder offers to be her champion if Sif is freed from the Destroyer…

An astounding turning point is reached in ‘The Dilemma of Dr. Blake!’ as Thor unites with his lost companions against Ulik, only to lose his newly re-energised hammer to Loki, who flees to Earth with it.

In hot pursuit, the heroes follow and Sif is gravely wounded in ‘…But Dr. Blake Can Die!’ wherein Thor reverts to his mortal guise to surgically operate on the dying goddess – an opportunity for further attack Loki cannot resist, but which our hero’s courage and ingenuity manage to frustrate…

To Be Continued…

Filling out this mythic missal are hidden gems of Kirby art: original pages from the stories in this volume, unused and modified cover designs and pencils, plus excerpts from the Marvel Bullpen Bulletin editorial feature and a classic cover modified by painter Richard Isdanove…

These transitional 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.
© 1966, 1967, 1968, 2017 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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The Adventures of Jo, Zette & Jocko: THE STRATOSHIP H.22


Mr. Pump’s Legacy – Part 1 of THE STRATOSHIP H.22
ISBN 13: 978-0416015522(HB)                    978-1405212458(PB)

Destination New York – Part 2 of THE STRATOSHIP H.22
ISBN 13: 978-0-4160-1532-4 (HB)               978-1-4052-1243-4 (PB)

By Hergé, translated by Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper & Michael Turner (Egmont UK)

George Remi, world famous as Hergé, had a long creative connection to Catholicism. At the behest of the Abbot Norbert Wallez, editor of Belgian Catholic newspaper Le XXe Siécle, he had created Tintin before moving on to such strips as the mischievous Quick and Flupke, Tim the Squirrel in the Far West’, ‘The Amiable Mr. Mops’, ‘Tom and Millie’ and ‘Popol Out West’ – all while continuing the globe-trotting adventures of the dauntless boy reporter and his faithful little dog.

In 1935, between working on serialised Tintin epics The Blue Lotus and The Broken Ear, Remi was approached by Father Courtois, director of the French weekly newspaper Coeurs Vaillants. The paper already carried the daily exploits of Hergé’s undisputed star-turn, but Courtois also wanted a strip that would depict solid family values and situations that the seemingly-orphaned and independent boy reporter was never exposed to.

He also presumably wanted something less subversive than the mischievous, trouble-making working-class boy rascals Quick and Flupke…

The proposed feature needed a set of characters that would typify a good, normal family: A working father, a housewife and mother, young boy, a sister, even a pet. Apparently inspired by a toy monkey called Jocko, Hergé devised the family Legrand. Jacques was an engineer, and son Jo and daughter Zette were average kids; bright, brave, honest, smart and yet still playful.

Mother stayed home, cooking and being rather concerned rather a lot. They had a small, feisty monkey for a pet – although I suspect as Jocko was tailless, he might have been a baby chimpanzee, which “As Any Fule Kno” is actually a species of ape.

The first adventure was the two-volume ‘The Secret Ray’ – only once published in English and consequently rarer than Hen’s teeth or monkey feathers. A ripping yarn of scientific bandits, gangsters, mad professors, robots and, regrettably, some rather ethnically unsound incidences of cannibal savages, this is very much a product of its time in too many respects. Although Hergé came to deeply regret (and wherever possible amend) his many early uses of that era’s racial stereotyping, the island dwelling natives in Le “Manitoba” Ne Répond Plus and L’ Éruption Du Karamako (which first ran in Coeurs Vaillants from January 19th 1936 to June 1937) will now always be controversial.

It’s a true pity that such masterful and joyous work has to be viewed with caution, read strictly in context and must be ascribed subtext and values which may never have been intended, merely because the medium is pictorial and its meaning passively acquired rather than textual, and which can therefore only be decoded by the conscious effort of reading.

I also wonder how much was a quiet, sensitive artist led by an aggressively proselytising, missionary Church’s doctrine and policy…

How much Church opposition was there to Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia in October 1935 for example? And don’t get me started on Nazi Germany and the Vatican…

Sorry. Rant brakes have been applied now…

Mr. Pump’s Legacy is much less culturally – or commercially – troublesome. When the “American Collar-Stud King” John Archibald Pump dies in a car crash at 155 mph, he probably went surprised but happy.

That’s because he was a septuagenarian millionaire-technocrat and unrepentant speed-fiend (that’s velocity, not pharmacology) and adrenalin junkie. On his remarkably rapid passing he leaves a 10-million dollar prize: an incentive for the first person or persons to fly non-stop between New York and Paris at an average speed of 1000 kilometres per hour.

Accomplishing that modern miracle will secure said cash, but if nobody wins within one year the money will revert to his ne’er-do-well nephews…

The contest captures world imagination in the Age of Speed, and many try for the prize, including S.A.F.C.A., the aeronautical company that Jacques Legrand works for. Very soon both the engineer and his family become the targets of skulduggery and sabotage as his groundbreaking design gradually becomes a beautiful flying machine.

Assaults, poison-pen letters and threats, murder attempts, blackmail and even kidnapping; nothing can impede the project whilst canny Jo and Zette are around to foil them. Even when the completed plane is targeted by an aerial bombardment, the resourceful children have a solution. Starting the plane, they fly away from the bomber, but become lost in the night and clouds…

With their fuel almost exhausted they spot a tiny island in a vast sea and manage to land the plane safely. How can they return the ship in time to win the Prize? Without food, water, fuel or any idea where they are, can they survive long enough to be found?

Combining all-ages thrills and slap-stick comedy with magical art and superb designs, Herg̩ Рa master-creator rapidly reaching the peak of his powers Рproduced in this cliff-hanging volume of adventure a true lost classic, and one worthy of much greater public attention.

 

A second oversized, fabulously-coloured volume concludes the saga in The Stratoship H.22, starring those capable Legrand children – and their pet monkey Jocko – who saved their father’s revolutionary high-speed plane from a bombing raid by flying it away only to emergency-land it on a tiny desolate island where they are marooned without food or fuel…

The islet is a desolate French Possession, and they discover from its only inhabitant that the next boat isn’t due for five months. Fortuitously, after a terrific storm, fuel drums wash ashore…

Scant weeks remain before the one-year deadline expires on Pump’s $10,000,000 death-bed challenge. Refuelling swiftly, Jo and Zette decide to return to France, even though they aren’t quite sure where it is…

Tragically the plucky youngsters overshoot and after a fearsome voyage, crash in the frozen Arctic where they are taken in by a tribe of Eskimos (yes, we’d call them Inuit now!). Jocko is separated from them and is rescued from an ice-floe by a passing ocean liner. Recognising the famous pet, the ship sends a message and the children are found. A rescue plane is dispatched with spare parts and the super-plane, once again piloted by the children, is returned to France.

With days remaining to make the attempt, the saboteurs step up their efforts to foil the French effort, but as ever childish ingenuity stymies their every dirty trick perpetrated as the super plane is restored to peak efficiency. With one day remaining, Jacques Legrand is finally ready to fly his brainchild into the history books. But when Jo and Zette come to see him off they find him and his crew all drugged into comas. With the deadline hard upon them, who can possibly fly the ship now..?

These beautiful graphic adventures are powerful and evocative fantasies for children, full of daring and accomplishment, and confirming the eternal truth that good kids will always defeat bad adults. If only the real world was as rewarding as these thrilling romps for the young-at-heart of all ages. And if only these superb classics were back in print…
© 1951, 1979, 2007 Editions Casterman, Paris& Tournai. All Rights Reserved.
English text © 1987, 2005, 2007 Egmont UK Limited. All Rights Reserved.

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Scalped Vol 1: Indian Country


By Jason Aaron & R.M. Guéra (DC Comics/Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1317-6

The Western is a tricky genre to pin down: all at once infinitely re-inventible, compellingly human and shockingly mythic. The genre also enjoys a chameleonic gift for subsuming the unique memes and tropes of other forms of story-making and pitting them against each other.

There are horror westerns, space westerns, comedy westerns and – because time and location aren’t key to our definition – especially crime stories that can be fully acknowledged as being pure Cowboys and Indians…

These revelations have always been best explored in the relatively recent phenomenon of “grim and gritty” comics. Initially the preserve of Good-Guys-In-Tights savagely slaughtering really bad folk instead of arresting them, now the tarnished grime of über-realism can be seen where it belongs – in tales of darkly desperate people facing their greatest challenges.

You don’t need a history degree to know that Native Americans have had a pretty crap time since Europeans colonized their country. However, in recent decades lip-service and guilt have been turned into some minor concessions to the most disadvantaged ethnicity in the USA, and contemporary Federal mandates that allow gambling on officially designated Indian Land have meant a cash bonanza for various tribes on reservations throughout the country. The Indians are getting rich.

Well, some of them are…

Disenchanted son of a 1970s Native American activist, Dashiell Bad Horse ran away from the desolate squalor of the Prairie Rose Indian Reservation as soon as he turned fifteen. Now he’s back and although there’s a snazzy new casino, “the Rez” is still a hell-hole and sordid Demilitarized Zone where his people subsist in crushing poverty, still prey to every self-destructive social toxin money or favours can buy or bestow.

Reluctantly Dash takes a sheriff’s job, but he knows he’s actually just another leg-breaker for current Tribal Leader and fully-installed crime boss Lincoln Red Crow. Still, whilst wiping out rival drug and booze gangs for his brooding boss, he is slowly growing closer to the all-powerful Indian Godfather…

The job even provides a number of tantalising, too-tempting fringe benefits, which facilitate Bad Horse finally getting to really know the former rebel who was once his mother’s closest ally in the all-but-forgotten freedom movement.

And that’s good. After all, that’s why the FBI planted him there in the first place…

As concocted by writer Jason Aaron and potently limned by R.M. Guéra, this slow-boiling saga is seedy, violent, overtly sexual and ferociously compelling: a darkly brutal, modern-day Western Noir.

The oddly familiar yet fiercely exotic locale and painfully unchanging foibles of people on the edge make this tale an instant classic and one still available as a either trade paperback or eBook.

Scalped: Indian Country is an uncompromising thriller that hits hard, hits often and hit home. Best of all, it’s just the opening salvo in a lengthy sequence of compulsive confrontations and unwrapped mysteries so why not hold on to your hat and jump right in?
© 2007 Jason Aaron & Rajko Milošević. All Rights Reserved.

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Basil Wolverton’s Culture Corner


By Basil Wolverton (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-308-8

Basil Wolverton was one of a kind; a cartoonist and wordsmith of unique skills and imagination and one whose controversial works inspired and delighted many whilst utterly revolting others.

Born in Central Point, Oregon on July 9th 1909, Wolverton worked as a Vaudeville performer, reporter and cartoonist, and – unlike most cartoonists of his time – preferred to stay far away from the big city. For most of his life he mailed his work from the rural wilderness of Vancouver, Washington State.

He made his first national cartoon sale at age 16 and began pitching newspaper strips in the late 1920s. A great fan of fantastic fiction and the swiftly-developing science fiction genre, Wolverton sold Marco of Mars to the Independent Syndicate of New York in 1929 but the company then declined to publish it, citing its similarity to the popular Buck Rogers feature.

Equally at home with comedy, horror and adventure fantasy material the young creative dynamo adapted easily to the concept of superheroes, and began working extensively in the new medium of comicbooks, where he produced such gems as Spacehawks and Disk-Eyes the Detective for Circus Comics, plus a brace of minor hits and unabashed classics: the grimly imaginative (but unrelated) sci fi cosmic avenger Spacehawk for Target Comics and Rockman – Underground Secret Agent for Timely/Marvel’s USA Comics.

Seemingly tireless, Wolverton also produced an apparently endless supply of comedy features, ranging from extended series such as superman/boxing parody ‘Powerhouse Pepper’ to double, single and half-page gag fillers such as ‘Bedtime Bunk’, ‘Culture Quickie’ and ‘Bedtime Banter’.

In 1946 he infamously won a national competition held by Al Capp of Li’l Abner fame to visualise “Lena the Hyena”; that strip’s “ugliest woman in the world”, and during the 1950s space and horror boom crafted some of the most imaginative short stories comics have ever seen. He also worked for Mad Magazine.

Wolverton had been a member of Herbert W. Armstrong’s (prototype televangelist of a burgeoning Christian fundamentalist movement) Radio Church of God since 1941. In 1956, he illustrated the founder’s pamphlet ‘1975 in Prophecy’ and two years later produced a stunning illustrative interpretation of The Book of Revelation Unveiled at Last.

Soon after he began writing and drawing an illustrated six-volume adaptation of the Old Testament entitled ‘The Bible Story: the Story of Man’ which was serialised in the sect’s journal The Plain Truth. In many ways, these religious works are his most moving and powerful – and will the subject of a forthcoming review…

In 1973 he returned to the world of comic books, illustrating more of his memorably comedic grotesques for DC’s Plop!, but the aging artist suffered a stroke the next year. Basil Wolverton died on December 31st 1978.

In 2010 Fantagraphics collected a spectacular haul of Wolverton’s very best gag features in a uniquely informative hardback which is now also available in a fancy-shmancy sci fi digital edition.

Culture Corner ran as a surreal and sublimely screwball half-page “advice column” in Whiz Comics as well as The Marvel Family and The Daisy Handbook from 1946 to 1955, when publisher Fawcett sold off its comic division to Charlton Comics – including the very last unpublished strips. The hermit-cartoonist was clearly a meticulous creator, and his extensive files have bequeathed us a once-in-a-lifetime insight into his working practice and the editorial exigencies of the period.

Wolverton sent a fully pencilled rough of each proposed episode to Will Lieberson and Virginia Provisiaro (Executive editor and Whiz Comic’s editor respectively) who would comment, then commission or reject.

The returned pencils would then form the skeleton of the instalment. This marvellously madcap tome re-presents the full-colour strips with (almost) all of the original pencil roughs, – diligently stored by Wolverton for decades – as counterpoint and accompaniment, revealing the depth not only of Wolverton’s imagination at play but also his deft facility with design and inking.

Also included are some extra roughs and all the extent rejected ideas – still some of the most outrageous tomfoolery ever unleashed even after all these years.

Basil Wolverton was something of an inventor and DIY maestro, according to his son Monte’s illuminating introduction, and turned the family home into a dream-house Rube Goldberg or our own Professor Brainstawm would be proud of, and that febrile ingenuity is clearly seen in the advisements of Croucher K. Conk Q.O.C. (Queer Old Coot) as with awesome alliteration and pre-Rap rhyming riffs, the surly savant suggests solutions for some of life’s least tiresome troubles.

Among the welter of whacky wisdoms imparted here, some of the most timelessly true are ‘How to Raise Your Eyebrows’, ‘How to Eat your Spaghetti without Getting Wetty’, ‘How to Clap without Mishap’, ‘How to Stop Brooding if your Ears are Protruding’, ‘How to Bow’ and ‘How to Grope for Bathtub Soap’: prominent amongst more than a hundred other sage prescriptions, so whatever your age, alignment or species this crazy chronicle has something that will change your life – and often for the better!

Graphically grotesque, inveterately un-sane and scrupulously screwball, this lexicon of lost laughs is a must have item for anyone in need of certifiably classy cheering up.
© 2010 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.

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Eagle Classics: Harris Tweed – Extra Special Agent


By John Ryan (Hawk Books -1990)
ISBN: 978-0-94824-822-1

The son of a diplomat and irrefutable True Gent, John Ryan was born in 1921, served in Burma and India and – after attending the Regent Street Polytechnic (1946-48) – took up a teaching post as assistant Art Master at Harrow School from 1948 to 1955.

It was during this time that he began contributing strips to comics such as Girl and legendary weekly comic The Eagle.

On April 14th 1950 Britain’s grey, post-war gloom was partially lifted with the first issue of a glossy new comic that literally shone with light and colour. Mesmerised children were soon understandably enraptured with the gloss and dazzle of Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future, a charismatic star-turn venerated to this day as well as a plethora of strips illustrating some of their favourite radio shows.

The Eagle was a tabloid sized paper with full photogravure colour inserts alternating with text and a range of other comic features. Tabloid is a big page and you can get a lot of material onto each one. Deep within, on the bottom third of a monochrome folio was an 8-panel strip entitled Captain Pugwash, the story of a Bad Buccaneer and the many sticky ends which nearly befell him.

Ryan’s quirky, spiky style also lent itself to the numerous spot illustrations required every week.

Pugwash, his harridan of a wife and the useless, lazy crew of the Black Pig ran until issue #19 when the feature disappeared. This was no real hardship as Ryan had been writing and illustrating Harris Tweed – Extra Special Agent which began as a full page (tabloid, remember – an average of twenty panels a page, per week!) in #16.

Tweed ran for three years as a full page until 1953 when it dropped to a half-page strip and deftly repositioned as a purely comedic venture. For our purposes and those of the book under review it’s those first three years we’re thinking of.

Tweed was a bluff and blundering caricature of the “military Big Brass” Ryan had encountered during the war. In gentler times the bumbler with a young, never-to-be-named assistant known only as ‘Boy’, solved mysteries and captured villains to general popular acclaim. Thrilling and often macabre adventure blended seamlessly with sly yet cheerful schoolboy low comedy in these strips, since Tweed was in fact that most British of archetypes, a bit of a twit and a bit of a sham…

His totally undeserved reputation as detective and crime fighter par excellence, and his good-hearted yet smug arrogance – as demonstrated elsewhere by the likes of Bulldog Drummond, Dick Barton – Special Agent, or Sexton Blake somehow endeared the arrogant, posturing buffoon to a young public which would in later years take to its heart Captain Mainwaring in Dad’s Army and, more pointedly perhaps, Peter Sellers’ numerous film outings as Inspector Clouseau.

Ryan’s art in these strips is particularly noteworthy. Deep moody blacks and intense, sharp, edgy inking creates a mood of fever-dream intensity. There are anachronistic echoes and nuances of underground cartoons of more than a decade later, and much of the inevitable ‘brooding, lurking horror’ atmosphere found in the best works of Basil Wolverton. Ryan knew what kids liked and he delivered it by the cartload.

This too-slim, oversized (324 x 234mm x) paperback compilation is all that’s readily available these days, but surely in these days of electronic publishing some enterprising fan with a complete Eagle Collection can link up with a perspicacious publisher someway, somehow and produce a comprehensive compilation of the nation’s most self-lauded sleuth?

I know a lot of aging 10-year olds and their grandchildren who would leap at the chance to see the old team back in action…
Harris Tweed © 1990 Fleetway Publications. Compilation © 1990 Hawk Books.

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George McManus’s Bringing Up Father: Forever Nuts – Classic Screwball Strips


By George McManus, edited by Jeffrey Lindenblatt (NBM)
ISBN 13: 978-1-56163-556-6

One of the best and most influential comic strips of all time gets a wonderfully lavish deluxe outing thanks to the perspicacious folk at NBM as part of their series collecting the earliest triumphs of sequential cartooning. Look out for Happy Hooligan and hunt down Forever Nuts: Mutt and Jeff to see the other strips that formed the basis and foundation of our entire industry and art-form.

George McManus was born on January 23rd 1882 (or maybe 1883) and drew from a very young age. His father, realising his talent, secured him work in the art department of the St. Louis Republic newspaper. The lad was thirteen, and swept floors, ran errands, drawing when ordered to.

In an era before cheap and reliable photography, artists illustrated news stories; usually disasters, civic events and executions: McManus claimed that he had attended 120 hangings – a national record! The young man spent his off-hours producing cartoons and honing his mordant wit. His first sale was Elmer and Oliver. He hated it.

The jobbing cartoonist had a legendary stroke of luck in 1903. Acting on a bootblack’s tip, he placed a $100 bet on a 30-1 outsider and used his winnings to fund a trip to New York City. He splurged his windfall wager and on his last day in the big city got two job offers: one from the McClure Syndicate and a lesser bid from Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World.

He took the smaller offer, went to work for Pulitzer and created a host of features for the paper including Snoozer, The Merry Marceline, Ready Money Ladies, Cheerful Charlie, Panhandle Pete, Let George Do It, Nibsy the Newsboy in Funny Fairyland (one of the earliest Little Nemo knock-offs) and eventually, his first big hit (1904) The Newlyweds.

This last brought him to the attention of Pulitzer’s arch rival William Randolph Hearst who, acting in tried and true manner, lured the cartoonist away with big money in 1912. In Hearst’s stable of papers The Newlyweds became Sunday page feature Their Only Child, and was soon supplemented by Outside the Asylum, The Whole Blooming Family, Spare Ribs and Gravy and Bringing Up Father.

At first it alternated with other McManus domestic comedies in the same slot, but eventually the artist dropped Oh, It’s Great to be Married!, Oh, It’s Great to Have a Home and Ah Yes! Our Happy Home! as well as his second Sunday strip Love Affairs of a Muttonhead to fully concentrate on the story of Irish hod-carrier Jiggs whose vast newfound wealth brought him no joy, whilst his parvenu wife Maggie and their inexplicably beautiful, cultured daughter Nora sought acceptance in “Polite Society”.

The strip turned on the simplest of premises: whilst Maggie and Nora feted wealth and aristocracy, Jiggs, who only wanted to booze, schmooze and eat his beloved corned beef and cabbage, would somehow shoot down their plans – usually with severe personal consequences. Maggie might have risen in society, but she never lost her devastating accuracy with crockery and household appliances…

Bringing Up Father debuted on January 12th 1913, originally appearing thrice-weekly, then four and eventually every day. It made McManus two fortunes (the first he lost in the 1929 Stock Market crash), spawned a radio show, a movie in 1928, and five more between 1946-1950 (as well as an original Finnish film in 1939) and 9 silent animated short features.

…And that’s not counting all the assorted marketing paraphernalia that fetches such high prices in today’s antique markets. The artist died in 1954, and other creators continued the strip until May 28th 2000, its unbroken 87 years making it the second longest running newspaper strip of all time.

McManus said that he got the basic idea from The Rising Generation: a musical comedy he’d seen as a boy: but the premise of wealth not bringing happiness was only the barest foundation of the strip’s explosive success. Jigg’s discomfort at his elevated position, his yearnings for the nostalgic days and simple joys of youth are afflictions everybody is prey to, but the true magic at play here is the canny blend of slapstick, satire, sexual politics and fashion, all delivered by a man who could draw like an angel. The incredibly clean, simple lines and superb use – and implicit understanding – of art nouveau and art deco imagery and design make this series a stunning treat for the eye.

This magical monochrome hardback – collecting the first two years of Bringing Up Father – covers the earliest inklings of the formation of that perfect formula, and includes a fascinating insight into the American head-set as the fictional and fabulously fractious family go on an extended (eight month) grand tour of the Continent in the months leading up to the Great War.

Then, as 1914 closed, the feature highlights how ambivalent the New World still was to the far-distant “European War”…

An added surprise for a strip of this vintage is the great egalitarianism of it. Although there is an occasional visual stereotype to swallow and excuse, what we today regard as racism is practically absent. The only thing to watch out for is the genteel sexism and dramatically entrenched class (un)consciousness, although McManus clearly pitched his tent on the side of the dirty, disenfranchised and downtrodden – as long as he could get a laugh out of it…

This is a wonderful, evocative celebration of the world’s greatest domestic comedy strip, skilfully annotated for those too young to remember those days and still uproariously funny. Get it for grandma and swipe it while she’s sleeping off the sherry and nostalgia…
No © invoked.

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The Flash by Grant Morrison and Mark Millar


By Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, Ron Marz, Chuck Dixon, Paul Ryan, Ron Wagner, John Nyberg, Paul Pelletier, John Lowe, Will Rosado, Sal Buscema, Pop Mhan, Joshua Hood, Chris Ivy, Ariel Olivetti & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-6102-3

There are many super-speedsters in the DCU and most of them congregate in the conjoined metropolis of Keystone and Central City. Wally West, third incarnation of The Flash, lives there with his true love Linda Park, his Aunt Iris and fellow fast-fighters such as Jay Garrick. Impulse (a juvenile speedster from the future) and his mentor/keeper Max Mercury – the Zen Master of hyper-velocity – live in Alabama but often visit as they only live picoseconds away…

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

The Silver Age Flash, whose creation ushered in a new and seemingly unstoppable era of costumed crusaders, died heroically during Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985-1986) and was promptly succeeded by his sidekick Kid Flash. Of course, Allen later returned from the dead – but doesn’t everyone?

Initially Wally West struggled to fill the boots of his predecessor, both in sheer ability and, more tellingly, in confidence. Feeling a fraud, he nonetheless persevered and eventually overcame, becoming the greatest to carry the name.

At the end of the 1990s the grand, old-fashioned Fights and Tights mythology and methodology was given a bit of post-modern gloss when Caledonian wizards Grant Morrison and Mark Millar turned their considerable talents to the third incarnation of the Fastest Man Alive. Reprinting Flash (volume 2) #130-141, crossover episodes Green Arrow #130, Green Lantern #96, plus portions of The Flash 80-Page Giant #1 and JLA Secret Files #1, this rousing paperback collection (also available digitally) begins with Wally living with his one true love Linda Park, and enjoying a celebrity life as the current Scarlet Speedster.

Triptych ‘Emergency Stop’ (illustrated by Paul Ryan & John Nyberg) kicks off as a disembodied costume targets old villains. Absorbing their powers – and eventually their lives – it undertakes a sinister master-plan.

Continuing its grisly campaign in ‘Threads’ The Suit – ghost, pre-programmed super-technology or something else – proves more than a match for Keystone’s peace officers and even her superhuman guardians. Max Mercury, Jay Garrick and Impulse are not enough to save West from crippling injuries, and it takes a quantum leap in his abilities before Wally can save everybody from certain death in astounding conclusion ‘Fashion Victims’…

Following that superb saga, the Celtic lads get a chance to show American writers how it’s pronounced as Scottish villain Mirror Master attacks the recuperating hero and kidnaps his lady in ‘Flash Through the Looking Glass’.

As ever the understated excellence of Ryan & Nyberg act as the perfect vehicle for all those high-speed thrills, never better than when Garrick takes centre-stage for the moving ‘Still-Life in the Fast Lane’, a poignant parable that shows how even the swiftest men can’t outrun old age and death…

During this period DC was keen on recreating and reviving old heroes, with “legacy” versions of many old stars popping up. After Hal Jordan and John Stewart stopped being Green Lantern new kid Kyle Rayner picked up the ring just as Connor Hawke inherited his father’s role as Green Arrow and Wally followed Barry Allen.

‘Death at the Top of the World’ was a 3-chapter company crossover from March 1998 that began in Green Lantern #96 with ‘Three of a Kind’ (by Ron Marz, Paul Pelletier & John Lowe). The three heirs – who don’t particularly like each – other opt for a communal Arctic cruise to break the ice (sorry!) only to stumble into a plot by super-villains Sonar, Heat Wave and Hatchet that culminates in a devastating and murderous attack on the other passengers by world-class menace Dr. Polaris in Green Arrow #130, (Chuck Dixon, Will Rosado & Sal Buscema).

The concluding chapter by Morrison, Millar, Ryan & Nyberg – played as a classic courtroom drama – tops off this thoroughly readable tale in fine style and offers a chilling prologue and cliffhanger for the next astounding epic…

‘The Human Race’ commences with ‘Radio Days’ as 10-year-old Wally plays with his Ham Radio kit, chatting to an imaginary friend before we sprint into the present-day to find the Flash seconds after his last exploit, cradling an alien super-speedster who has crashed at his feet, gasping out a warning with his dying breath…

When two god-like alien gamblers materialise and demand Earth’s fastest inhabitant replaces the dead runner in a race across all time and space the entire planet learns that if a contestant isn’t provided Earth is forfeit and will be destroyed…

With the Justice League unable to defeat the cosmic gamesters, Wally has no choice but to compete, but almost falls apart when he discovers his opponent is Krakkl, a radio-wave lifeform who used to talk to him across the cosmic ether when he was a kid.

Now Wally has to beat a cherished childhood memory he thought a mere childhood fancy to save his homeworld… and if he does, Krakkl’s entire species will die…

Ron Wagner steps in as penciller for ‘Runner’ and ‘Home Run’, as, pushed to the limits of endurance and imagination, Flash criss-crosses all reality before despondently realising he’s in a match he cannot win… until valiant, self-sacrificing radio-racer Krakkl shares a deadly and world-saving secret…

Cosmic, clever and deeply sentimental in the fashion comics fans are suckers for, this stunning saga ends with Earth enduring after a spectacular ‘Home Run’ with its victorious but ultimately oblivious hero on course for the ultimate finish…

The drama escalates in tense thriller trilogy ‘The Black Flash‘ (Miller, Pop Mhan & Chris Ivy, with additional pencils from Joshua Hood) as a demonic entity that abides beyond the velocity-fuelling energy field dubbed the Speed Force comes for the exhausted, jubilant hero in ‘The Late Wally West’.

Over the decades, elder speedsters have noticed that their ultra-swift comrades have all been hunted and taken by a supernal beast before their lives ended and when the creature is captured in photos apparently stalking Wally they do all they can to thwart it. Tragically, they succeed…

Unable to kill the Flash, the thing destroys his beloved Linda instead…

Jesse Quick, second-generation hero and a legacy who lost her dad to the Black Flash, takes over Wally’s role as crushed, depressed and broken he loses his connection to the Speed Force, following Linda’s funeral. However, after weeks of shell-shocked mourning he moves on, planning a new life in a foreign country, but the Black Flash is spiteful and never gives up…

Thus, when the beast attacks powerless Wally at the airport in ‘The End’ Max Mercury, Garrick, Impulse and Jesse all confront the creature until the true Scarlet Speedster rediscovers the inner fire necessary to not only face and defeat the thing, but also bring back Linda from the Great Unknown.

That would be a perfect ending to this tumultuous tome, but there’s still hidden gem ‘Your Life is My Business’ – by Millar & Ariel Olivetti – as Wally has a few drinks in a pub with the author while laying out the next fictionalised episode of his comic book and even a Who’s Who fact page detailing the secrets of ‘The Fastest Man Alive’ to bring the high-octane fun to a close.

Fast, furious and utterly fabulous, the Flash has always epitomised the very best in costumed comic thrills and these tales are among the very best. If you haven’t seen them yet, run – do not walk – to your nearest emporium or vendor-site and catch all the breathless action you can handle, A.S.A.P!
© 1997, 1998, 2016 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Captain Marvel: Marvel Masterworks volume 1


By Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Arnold Drake, Gene Colan, Don Heck & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-6756-3

After years as an also-ran and up-and-comer, by 1968 Marvel Comics was in the ascendant. Their sales were catching up with industry leaders National/DC Comics and Gold Key, and they finally secured a new distribution deal that would allow them to expand their list of titles exponentially. Once the stars of “twin-books” Tales of Suspense, Tales to Astonish and Strange Tales all got their own titles the House of Ideas just kept on creating.

One dead-cert idea was a hero named after the company – and one with some popular cachet and nostalgic pedigree as well. After the DC/Fawcett court case of the 1940s-1950s, the name Captain Marvel disappeared from the newsstands.

In 1967, during a superhero boom/camp craze generated by the Batman TV show, publisher MLF secured rights to the name and produced a number of giant-sized comics featuring an intelligent robot who (which?) could divide his body into segments and shoot lasers from his eyes.

Quirky and charming and devised by the legendary Carl (Human Torch) Burgos, the feature nevertheless could not attract a large following. On its demise, the name was quickly snapped up by the expanding Marvel Comics Group.

Marvel Super-Heroes was a brand-new title: it had been the giant-sized reprint comicbook Fantasy Masterpieces, combining monster and mystery tales with Golden Age Timely Comics classics, but with the twelfth issue it added an all-new experimental section for characters without homes such as Medusa, Ka-Zar, Black Knight and Doctor Doom, and debuted new concepts like Guardians of the Galaxy, Phantom Eagle and, to start the ball rolling, an troubled alien spy sent to Earth from the Kree Galaxy. He held a Captain’s rank and his name was Mar-Vell.

Most of that is covered in series-author Roy Thomas’ Introduction before this cosmically conceived tome – available in hardcover, paperback and digital editions – kicks off. On offer are the origin adventure from Marvel Super-Heroes #12-13 and the contents of Captain Marvel #1-9 collectively spanning cover-dates December 1967 to January 1969…

Crafted by Stan Lee, Gene Colan & Frank Giacoia, the initial MS-H 15 page-instalment ‘The Coming of Captain Marvel’ devolved directly from Fantastic Four #64-65 wherein the quartet defeated a super-advanced Sentry robot from a mythical alien race, only to be attacked by a high official of those long-lost extraterrestrials in the very next issue!

After defeating Ronan the Accuser, the FF heard no more from the far from extinct Kree, but the millennia-old empire was once again interested in Earth. Dispatching a surveillance mission, the Kree wanted to know everything about us. Unfortunately, the agent they chose was a man of conscience; whilst his commanding officer Colonel Yon-Rogg was a ruthless rival for the love of the ship’s medical officer Una.

No sooner has the good captain made a tentative planet-fall and clashed with the US army from the local missile base (often hinted at as being Cape Kennedy) than the first instalment ends. Stan and Gene had set the ball rolling but it was left to Roy Thomas to establish the basic ground-rules in the next episode.

Colan remained, this time with Paul Reinman inking. ‘Where Stalks the Sentry!’ sees the alien spy improving his weaponry before an attempt by Yon-Rogg to kill him destroys a light aircraft carrying scientist Walter Lawson to that military base.

Assuming Lawson’s identity, Mar-Vell infiltrates “The Cape” but arouses the suspicions of security Chief Carol Danvers. He is horrified to discover that the Earthlings are storing the Sentry (defeated by the FF) on base. Yon-Rogg, sensing an opportunity, activates the deadly mechanoid. As it goes on a rampage only Mar-Vell stands in its path…

That’s a lot of material for twenty pages but Thomas and Colan were on a roll. With Vince Colletta inking, the third chapter was not in Marvel Super-Heroes but in the premiere issue of the Captain’s own title released for May 1968

‘Out of the Holocaust… A Hero!’ is an all-out action thriller, which still made space to establish twin sub-plots of “Lawson’s” credibility and Mar-Vell’s inner doubts. The faithful Kree soldier is rapidly losing faith in his own race and falling under the spell of the Earthlings…

The Captain’s first foray against a super-villain is revealed in the next two issues as we find that the Kree and the shapeshifting Skrulls are intergalactic rivals, and the latter want to know why there’s an enemy soldier stationed on Earth.

Sending their own top agent in ‘From the Void of Space Comes the Super Skrull!’, the resultant battle almost levels the entire state before bombastically concluding with the Kree on top ‘From the Ashes of Defeat!’

Issue #4 saw the secret invader clashing with fellow anti-hero Sub-Mariner in ‘The Alien and the Amphibian!’ as Mar-Vell’s superiors make increasingly ruthless demands of their reluctant agent.

Captain Marvel #5 saw Arnold Drake & Don Heck assume the creative chores (with John Tartaglione on inks) in cold-war monster-mash clash ‘The Mark of the Metazoid’, wherein a mutated Soviet dissident is forced by his militaristic masters to kidnap Walter Lawson (that’s narrative symmetry, that is).

Issue #6 then finds the Captain ‘In the Path of Solam!’; battling a marauding sun-creature before being forced to prove his loyalty by unleashing a Kree bio-weapon on an Earth community in ‘Die, Town, Die!’ However, all is not as it seems since Quasimodo, the Living Computer is also involved…

The romantic triangle sub-plot was wearing pretty thin by this time, as was the increasingly obvious division of Mar-Vell’s loyalties, so a new examination of Dr Lawson, whose identity the Kree man purloined, begins in #8’s ‘And Fear Shall Follow!’.

Wrapping up this first volume is another alien war story as Yon-Rogg is injured by rival space imperialists the Aakon. In the battle Mar-Vell’s heroism buys him a break from suspicion but all too soon he’s embroiled with a secret criminal gang and a robot assassin apparently built by the deceased Lawson, and trouble escalates when the surviving Aakon stumble into the mess in ‘Between Hammer and Anvil!’…

Fascinating extras added in here include a full cover gallery, creator biographies, the December 1967 Marvel Bullpen Bulletins page announcing the coming of Captain Marvel, plus sublime pencil-art pages by Colan: the full 16 un-inked pages from Marvel Super-Heroes #13 for art-lovers to drool over. Glorious!
© 1967, 1968, 1969, 2013 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Loveless Vol 2: Thicker Than Blackwater


By Brian Azzarello, Marcelo Frusin, Danijel Zezelj, Werther Dell’edera & various (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1250-6

Hitching its wagon firmly to the grimy, gritty, excessively dark and overwhelmingly nihilistic end of the Western genre, Loveless is a bleak and brutal confection, utterly unsanitised and unsuitable for kiddie consumption, but one that seems far closer to historical truth than any six-gun shootout on Main Street or rhinestone spectacle…

In this second stunning collection (still as yet not in digital form) Brian Azzarello and Marcelo Frusin, who did so much to revive and revitalise crime comics genre with 100 Bullets and returned a razor-sharp hard edge to urban supernatural horror in Hellblazer, take a further good hard look at the Western with results both breathtaking and horrific…

The mysteries continue and deepen as the spiritually bereft and morally bankrupt town of Blackwater further festers under Union occupation in the days and months after the American Civil War. The freed slave population are no better off under Northern rule, returning southern men have taken to wearing white sheets whilst exacting bloody reprisals, and the ordinary citizens are terrified that their lives and their secrets will be found out by either the Yankees or ,worse yet, returned Confederate hard man Wes Cutter.

Nobody is sure what Cutter wants. He’s asking uncomfortable questions about the fate of his missing wife, and he doesn’t want to be anybody’s friend. Moreover, since the military commander and his Carpetbagging bosses have insultingly appointed Cutter sheriff of Blackwater, he’s a traitor with the authority to get away with whatever he wants.

How the guilty-as-sin townsfolk react to Occupation Forces, former slave/Union soldier turned bounty hunter Atticus Mann, and the rabble-rousing, murderous renegade Confederate returnees, let alone the despised sheriff, is chillingly and graphically depicted by Danijel Zezelj, Werther Dell’edera and Frusin when the citizens become victims of a sustained campaign of murder…

Combining classic Western themes with contemporary twists such as flamboyant serial killers and protracted murder mysteries, Azzarello even manages to include hot-off-the-presses contemporary political metaphor in this twisted, stark and uncompromising series (collecting issues #6-12 of the monthly Vertigo comicbook).

A brilliant Western and a dazzling adult comic strip.

Get it if you’re old enough and tough enough.
© 2006 Brian Azzarello & Marcelo Frusin. All Rights Reserved.